University of Konstanz

Since 2007, the University of Konstanz has been successful in the Excellence Initiative of the German Federal and State Governments with its institutional strategy “Modell Konstanz – Towards a Culture of Creativity” . This strategy focused on developing our strengths as well as our innovative concepts and ideas. Our university was one of eleven universities in Germany whose “Institutional Strategy to Promote Top-Level Research” is funded by the German federal government and the state of Baden-Württemberg. In 2006, our Center of Excellence “Cultural Foundations of Social Integration” (2006 – 2019) was approved after the Excellence Initiative’s first call for proposals. Shortly thereafter in 2007, our Konstanz Research School Chemical Biology  was accepted into the Excellence Initiative. During the second phase of the Excellence Initiative, we were able to further enhance our profile with the Graduate School of Decision Sciences , which was established in 2012.

Since 1 January 2019, two new Clusters of Excellence in Konstanz have been funded by the Excellence Strategy, the follow-up programme to the Excellence Initiative. They include: The “Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour” and “The Politics of Inequality: Perceptions, Participation and Policies”. Since July 2019, the University of Konstanz has been successful with its concept ”creative.together” in the Universities of Excellence funding line of the Excellence Strategy. The concept builds on the previous university strategy and further develops its “culture of creativity” in a systematic way.

Advancement of early career researchers

The University of Konstanz strives to become a European leader with regard to the promotion of earl career researchers. Our Zukunftskolleg is a unique project in Germany in this respect. It offers our early career researchers an interdisciplinary working environment with excellent research conditions and the greatest possible freedom.

Our Code of Practice for Researchers between Doctoral Studies and Professorship is further evidence of our commitment to promoting new talents. The university supports doctoral students enrolled in doctoral programmes, promotes the independence of doctoral students and early career researchers as they work their way up to a professorship and offers them a working environment in which they can focus on enhancing their scientific qualifications.

Excellent teaching and studies inspired by research

The University of Konstanz is currently home to some 11,400 students enrolled in around 100 different degree programmes in the fields of mathematics and natural sciences, humanities, law, economics and public administration. Many of them are interdisciplinary, with several being international programmes such as the master’s programmes “Public Administration and European Governance” and “Quantitative Economics”. Outstanding ranking results regularly confirm our excellent quality of study, for example, the THE Ranking World University Rankings 2017-2018 (21st nationwide, 201-250 group placement worldwide) the THE Ranking “150 under 50” in 2016 (1st place nationwide, 7th worldwide), the CHE University Ranking 2017 and our Graduate Survey 2015/2016. Our university is deeply rooted in a culture of continuous development of and improvement in teaching that is based on research. We accomplish this through the use of current research results, up-to-date methods in teaching and study, and through the integration of infrastructural platforms within the teaching environment. The experience and knowledge generated by our collaborative research projects also feed back into our teaching. We consider excellence and internationalisation as integral components of teaching quality, with the goal of further internationalising our study programmes. The opportunities offered by the Hochschuldidaktikzentrum (HDZ) (university didactics centre) strengthen the quality of teaching at our university. As a cross-institutional collaborative centre for teaching and research, the university’s Binational School of Education (BiSE) controls, coordinates and develops all aspects of teacher education at the University of Konstanz, working closely with Thurgau University of Teacher Education (PHTG), the Staatliches Seminar für Didaktik und Lehrerbildung (Gymnasien) Rottweil and our partner schools.

Internationalization

We are continuously improving our international visibility. Our university attracts outstanding international researchers and students to ensure excellence in research and teaching. We maintain partnerships with excellent research-oriented universities around the world. Through these efforts, the University of Konstanz is guaranteeing its international competitiveness while simultaneously enhancing its orientation towards regional and international partnerships. In the Times Higher Education World University Ranking 2016 we placed 175 worldwide. One of the reasons for this good result is the high proportion of international researchers at our university.