With 140,000 students, four universities, seven universities of applied sciences and three arts colleges, Berlin is also Germany’s higher education capital. 29 Nobel Prize winners – including Albert Einstein, Otto Hahn, Werner Heisenberg, Emil Fischer, Max Planck and Fritz Haber – conducted research at Humboldt-Universität alone. The fact that top research is the order of the day at Humboldt-Universität is also confirmed by excellent ratings in more recent league tables – especially in the fields of mathematics, German studies, and chemistry. 

Founded in 1810 on Unter den Linden, the university is also regarded as the “mother of all modern universities”. It was the first to put into practice the ideal of the unity of research and teaching called for by the person who gave the university its name: Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). The Charité, Europe’s largest university hospital, is also world-famous. A total of 8,000 students are registered on courses in 11 medical disciplines at the Charité, which is run jointly by the Humboldt-Universität and the Freie Universität. Many famous physicians – for example, Rudolf Virchow and Ferdinand Sauerbruch – worked in Berlin and founded a medical school of world renown.

 With more than 40,000 students, the largest university in the German capital is the Freie Universität, an institution with an unusual history. Concerned students and professors founded the Freie Universität in the western sector of Berlin on December 4, 1948 with support from local politicians and American occupation forces after students had been denied the right to attend Universität Unter den Linden in East Berlin for political reasons. Today, with courses in some 100 subjects, the university is one of the most diverse higher education institutions in Germany. In addition to more traditional disciplines such as languages, law and natural sciences, it also offers more specialized subjects such as theatre studies and Jewish studies. The internationally renowned Otto Suhr Institute for Political Science is equally popular with students and researchers. 

Very specialized courses, on the other hand, are offered by Berlin’s smaller higher education institutions, such as the private Europäische Wirtschaftshochschule (European School of Management) and the Universität der Künste (University of the Arts). The latter’s four departments – architecture, media and design; fine arts; music; and performing arts – attract creative geniuses from all over the world. Would you like to create new designs with London fashion legend Vivienne Westwood? Berlin’s Universität der Künste offers that possibility.

FACTS

Students: 140,000

Foreign students: 19,408

Universities: 4

Universities of applied science: 7

Arts colleges: 3

Population: 3.4 million

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