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University of Cologne — news, coverage & facts — IJR

Organization and faculties

The rectorate is responsible for the governance and management of the university. It consists of the rector as chairperson (Joybrato Mukherjee), six Vice-Rectors and the Chancellor (Karsten Gerlof). The rectorate is elected by the University Election Assembly, in which the Senate and the University Council exercise equal voting power; the first term of office is at least six years and subsequent terms of office at least four years. The rector is chairperson of the rectorate and the Senate of the university.

The university is divided into the following six Faculties:

WS 2023/24, according to the university publication 'Zahlen Daten Fakten 2023' (as of March 2025), main and part-time students, excluding doctoral students, incl. short-term students

On 20 July 2005, the University Senate approved a concept for the reorganization of the Faculties. The concept led to the dissolution of the Faculty of Education and the Faculty of Curative Education and the founding of a new ‘sixth’ Faculty, the Faculty of Human Sciences. The representatives of the didactic subjects, who had previously worked mainly at the Faculty of Education, were assigned to the Faculties corresponding to their subject as a separate subject group for didactics (for example "Biology and its didactics", "Chemistry and its didactics" as a new didactic subject group at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences), while the new Faculty of Human Sciences mainly retained the pedagogical, curative education and psychology subjects or transferred them from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities and the Faculty of Education. The reorganization of the Faculties was officially implemented on 1 January 2007 with the establishment of the corresponding committees. In 2010, the Center for Teacher Education was founded, which was given extensive responsibilities in the organization and coordination of teacher training degree programmes as part of the restructuring of teacher training in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Special funding for research

Clusters of Excellence / Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state governments:

CECAD Cologne Excellence Cluster for Aging and Aging-Associated Diseases

CEPLAS Cluster of Excellence on Plant Sciences

DYNAVERSE Our Dynamic Universe (from 1 January 2026)

ECONtribute: Märkte & Public Policy

ML4Q Matter and Light for Quantum Computing

Adenauer School of Government:

On 5 June 2025, the University of Cologne and the non-profit Alfred Landecker Foundation, founded by the Reimann family, signed a cooperation agreement to establish the Adenauer School of Government (ASG). The aim of the ASG is to establish itself as a leading, non-partisan center for public policy, governance and administrative sciences that helps to shape relevant developments in economics and other research fields. The school will be funded in long term, with an initial budget of ten million euros per year.

18 DFG Collaborative Research Centres and 10 participations in Collaborative Research Centres at other universities (as of October 2024)

CRC 1211: Earth - Evolution at the Dry Limit

CRC 1218: Mitochondrial Regulation of Cellular Function

CRC 1238: Control and Dynamics of Quantum Materials

CRC 1252: Prominence in Language

CRC 1310: Predictability in Evolution

CRC 1399: Mechanisms of Drug Sensitivity and Resistance in Small Cell Lung Cancer

CRC 1403: Cell Death in Immunity, Inflammation and Disease

CRC 1451: Key Mechanisms of Motor Control in Health and Disease

CRC 1530: Elucidation and Targeting of Pathogenic Mechanisms in B Cell Malignancies

CRC 1601: Habitats of Massive Stars Across Cosmic Time

CRC 1607: Towards immunomodulatory and Anti(lymph)angiogenic Therapies for Age-Related Blinding Eye Diseases

CRC 1678: Systems-Level Consequences of Fidelity Changes in mRNA and Protein Biosynthesis

CRC TRR 183: Entangled States of Matter

CRC TRR 228: Future Rural Africa: Future-making and Social-Ecological Transformation

CRC TRR 341: Plant Ecological Genetics

6 DFG Research Training Groups (see Graduate Programmes)

a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities (Faculty of Arts and Humanities)

Department-wide Graduate School (Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences)

Cologne Graduate School in Management, Economics and Social Sciences (CGS) (Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences)

Graduate School Managing Diversity & Transition (Faculty of Human Sciences)

Graduate School of the Faculty of Medicine

Graduate School of the Faculty of Law

EUniWell

ERC Grants

a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities

Graduate School for Biological Sciences

Cologne Graduate School Chemistry (CGSC)

Graduate School of Geosciences (GSGS)

Graduate School of Mathematics

Bonn-Cologne Graduate School of Physics and Astronomy (BCGS)

Interdisciplinary Program Health Sciences (IPHS)

Graduate School of Human Medicine and Dentistry (GSHZ)

Interdisciplinary Program Molecular Medicine (IPMM)

Graduate School of the Faculty of Law

Cologne Graduate School in Management, Economics and Social Sciences (CGS)

Graduate School of the Faculty of Human Sciences

Graduate School for Teacher Education

Some University of Cologne professors are also members of major research institutions:

German Aerospace Centre (DLR)

Forschungszentrum Jülich in the Helmholtz Association

DZNE – German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (Helmholtz)

ZB Med – German National Library of Medicine

GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences

German Institute for Adult Education – Leibniz Centre for Lifelong Learning (DIE)

Max Planck Institute for Neurological Research (MPINF)

Each year, the University of Cologne recognizes outstanding achievements in the categories research, teaching and learning as well as administration.

This scholarship is awarded to doctoral candidates. The scholarship is awarded in honour of professor Benedikt Schmittmann (1872–1939), a professor at the University of Cologne.

In 2003, a former employee in the International Office, who was responsible for studies abroad, set up a university scholarship fund; thanks to donations from former international scholarship holders and friends of internationalization, scholarships can be awarded annually for study visits at partner universities that offer a fee waiver.

The Cologne University Foundation was established in 2019 to promote early-career researchers, research and academic projects. The foundation manages private donations to the university, which promote the transfer of knowledge to society.

The volume of third-party funding was 239.2 million euros in 2023, of which 103.9 million euros was allocated to the Faculty of Medicine. The German Research Foundation was by far the largest provider of third-party funding with around 101.5 million euros. Other third-party funders in 2023 were the EU (16.9 million euros), the federal government (42.8 million euros), the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (21.7 million euros), foundations (17.2 million euros), industry (29.9 million euros) and other third-party funders (9.2 million euros).

The university has acquired a number of endowed professorships, some of which have been established on a long-term basis or only for a few years and are then funded by the state.

Bayer endowed professorship for Technical Chemistry, since 1986

Endowed professorship for Tumour Immunology of the German Cancer Aid, since 2002

Endowed professorship for Palliative Medicine, funded by the German Cancer Aid, since October 2005

Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Professorship for Ancient History, since 2006 for 7 years

Endowed professorship for Energy Industry, financed by the energy industry, April 2007 to February 2012

The Albertus Magnus Professorship was established by Senate resolution in 2004. Every year, a renowned international scholar or scientist is invited to give public lectures and seminars for one to two weeks.

Endowed professorship for the promotion of lawyer-oriented legal training, financed by the Hans Soldan Foundation, since 2014

Student representation

The students of the university are represented by student members in the various university committees, such as the Senate. These members are directly elected in annual elections or appointed by directly elected members from higher-level bodies. Due to the legal requirements of Section 11 subsection 2 of the Higher Education Act NRW, students do not form a majority in most committees and can be outvoted by professorial members and other status groups.

In contrast, the constituted student body is a statutory body under public law of the university and represents student interests. The central bodies are the student parliament with its 51 elected members and the student union (AStA) appointed by it as the executive body. The most important tasks of the student body are to represent the student interests in the university and society, to participate in the political discourse of the university and to promote culture, sport and political education. In order to fulfil these tasks, the student body levies a fee from the students, which is collected together with the fee for the Kölner Studierendenwerk as a course and tuition fee. In the winter semester 2024/25, this amounted to €304.25, of which about 36% was allocated to the Studierendenwerk and 58% to the semester ticket; the AStA is responsible for negotiating the price of the semester ticket with the Kölner Verkehrs-Betriebe (KVB). The remaining 6% was distributed by the student body to its own projects and salaries as well as to University Sport Cologne. The AStA offers a wide range of services, including counselling and complaints offices, a bicycle repair shop, a tool rental service, the campus garden and countless cultural and informative events such as lectures, museum tours, the long study nights and the ‘festival contre le racisme’.

In addition to the general representation of student interests, the student body also has several autonomous departments such as the autonomous parents’ department or the autonomous internationals' department; these departments represent special status groups within the student body.

At Faculty level, the student associations look after the interests of their respective students. Depending on the Faculty, there is either joint student association for all students in the Faculty or a two-tier system consisting of a departmental and a Faculty representation. In addition to providing subject-specific advice and representing students’ interests to lecturers, providing support to first-semester students is one of the main tasks of the student associations.

Internationalization

The International Office is responsible for the university’s international relations (offering support for international students and visiting scholars and scientists, study and research opportunities abroad, university partnerships, international marketing) at university level and the Centres for International Relations at Faculty level (centralized-decentralized organizational concept).

The university has been operating an office in Beijing since the beginning of 2007 (official inauguration in May 2007). The office is located at the DAAD German Centre and represents the China-NRW University Alliance. The University of Cologne has taken on the task of coordinating academic contacts with China from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The office will make it easier for members of the consortium to expand their work in China and provide local support. The University of Cologne heads this consortium. The university has further regional offices in New York City and in New Delhi and coordination offices in Cairo and Accra.

The number of international students in the winter semester 2023/24 was 5,074 (excluding doctoral students). This corresponds to around 11% of the total number of students.

The university maintains over 40 official partnerships. In addition to the official university partnerships, there are almost 300 cooperations and exchange relationships with renowned universities all over the world at the level of the individual Faculties and departments.

Extensive funding opportunities are available through the Erasmus programme of the EU, the DAAD or fee waivers agreements with partner universities (complete list of partner universities on the university website). In 2005, the University of Cologne took over the central mediation and coordination of relations between the higher education institutions of North Rhine-Westphalia and China.

In 2004, the university was awarded the Federal Foreign Office’s prize for special services to the support of international students for its centralized and decentralized organizational concept, based on the Centre for International Relations at the Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences.

During the years 2018 through 2022, 142 international scholars and scientists sponsored by the Humboldt Foundation chose to spend their research years at the University of Cologne.