Goethe University Frankfurt

Goethe University Frankfurt am Main
Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main

Established	1912/1914
Type	Public
Endowment	€ 518 Million (2011)
Rector	Prof. Werner Müller-Esterl
Academic staff	535 (2009)
Students	38,000 (4100 International students) (2009)
Location	Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Website	www.uni-frankfurt.de

The Goethe University Frankfurt (or University of Frankfurt) was founded in 1914 as a Citizens' University, which means that, while it was a State university of Prussia, it had been founded and financed by the wealthy and active liberal citizenry of Frankfurt am Main, a unique feature in German university history. It was named in 1932 after one of the most famous natives of Frankfurt, the poet and writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Today, the university has 38,000 students, on 4 major campuses.

Goethe University Frankfurt, positioned among the top international research universities, offers a wide variety of academic programmes, a diverse group of research institutes, and a focus on interdisciplinary approaches to solving complex problems. The university is named after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the Frankfurt-born polymath renowned for his exceptional contributions to literature, science, and philosophy.

Founded in 1914 with private funding and inspired by the legacy of the European Enlightenment, Goethe University stands out as a pioneering “citizens’ university”—and the history of the university is one of openness and public participation.

Today, Goethe University is one of the only universities in Germany that enjoys significant public funding alongside administrative autonomy and the ability to create a private endowment.

As a university with an endowment, a funding model rare in Germany’s system of higher education, GU enjoys considerable freedom from state control when it comes to the details of how a modern university should be run, including the appointing of professors. The endowment that is being built up will be invested specifically in promoting an excellent atmosphere in which to research, study, think, and create.

Situated in Germany’s most cosmopolitan and international city, the university attracts a diverse body of students and researchers from around the world. Students at Goethe benefit from studying and living in Frankfurt, the largest financial and trading centre in Europe—with plenty of opportunities to learn and practise speaking German. Today, Frankfurt is rated among the top 10 most liveable cities in the world (according to Mercer Human Resource Consulting).

Facts and Figures

41,000 students ( winter semester 2011/12)
6,500 international students
558 professors
58 endowed professorships and visiting professorships
Since 1914, 19 Nobel laureates have worked or studied at Goethe University
Endowment: €145.5 million (including firm pledges)
€136 million in third-party funding, plus €333 million from the state of Hessen
More than 8 million items in the university library

History

IG Farben Building at Campus Westend

The University of Frankfurt has at times been considered liberal, or left-leaning, and has had a reputation for Jewish and Marxist scholarship (or even Jewish-Marxist). Thus, during Nazi times, "almost one third of its academics and many of its students were dismissed for racial and/or political reasons—more than at any other German university" (University homepage). It also played a major part in the German student riots of 1968.

The University of Frankfurt is historically best known for the Institute for Social Research (founded 1924), institutional home of the Frankfurt School, a preeminent 20th century school of philosophy and social thought. Some of the most famous University of Frankfurt scholars are associated with this school, including Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Jürgen Habermas, as well as Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, and Walter Benjamin. Others include the sociologist Karl Mannheim, the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, the philosophers of religion Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and Paul Tillich, the psychologist Max Wertheimer, and the sociologist Norbert Elias.

In recent years, Goethe University has turned its attention especially to law, history and economics, creating new institutes, such as the Institute for Law and Finance (ILF) and the Center of Financial Studies (CFS). One of the university's ambitions is to become Germany's leading university for finance and economics, given the school's proximity to one of Europe's financial centers. Therefore, Frankfurt University's Goethe Business School developed a new M.B.A. program, in cooperation with Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. Today the university's Business School offers a number of programs including a Full Time MBA. Goethe university has established an international award for research in financial economics, the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics.

Organization

Main building at Campus Bockenheim

The university is located on four campuses in Frankfurt am Main:

Campus Bockenheim: Social sciences, Pedagogy, Psychology, Mathematics, Computer science, Human geography
Campus Riedberg: Pharmacy, Physics, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Geosciences and Geography
Campus Westend: Theology, Philosophy, History, Philology, Archaeology, Jurisprudence, Economics and Business Administration
Campus Niederrad: Medical science, Dentistry, University hospital

Other facilities include the university sports complex on Ginnheimer Landstraße in Frankfurt-Bockenheim, the Bio Campus which houses the Botanic Garden of Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main at the Palmengarten in Frankfurt, and Art history in Frankfurt-Hausen.

Academic Faculties

01 Law
02 Economics and Business Administration
03 Social Sciences
04 Educational Sciences
05 Psychology and Sports Sciences
06 Protestant Theology
07 Roman Catholic Theology
08 Philosophy and History
09 Linguistics, Cultural and Civilization Studies, Art Studies
10 Modern Languages
11Geosciences and Geography
12 Computer Science and Mathematics
13 Physics
14 Biochemistry, Chemistry and Pharmacy
15 Biological Sciences
16 Medical Science

Research

Frankfurt University is one of the leading research universities in Germany. Around 2,500 professors and academic staff carry out research in 16 departments. The university is at the forefront of research in areas such as law and finance, life sciences (especially membrane proteomics, RNA-ligands interaction, biomolecular nuclear magnetic resonance), drug research, cognitive neuroscience, heavy ions physics and interdisciplinary research on Africa. Research in the humanities at Frankfurt University ranked second in a survey of all German universities carried out by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation). Research activities in the areas of finance, money and law will be brought together in the House of Finance, which will established in the coming years.

Research Areas

Academic Departments

Faculty are currently involved in eight prestigious Sonderforschungsbereiche (Collaborative Research Centers), three Forschergruppen (Research Units) and one Schwerpunkt (Priority Program), all of which are funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation).

Collaborative Research Centers:

Molecular and Cellular Bases of Neuronal Organization
Culture of Knowledge and Social Change
Molecular Bioenergetics
Nitric Oxide (NO) as a Cellular Messenger
RNA-Ligand-Interactions
Functional Membrane Proteomics
Light-induced Dynamics of Biopolymers
The Tropospheric Ice Phase

Research Units:

Spin- and Charge-Correlations in Low-Dimensional Metalorganic Solids
Ecological Change and Cultural Disintegration in West and Central Africa
Vascular Homeostasis: Molecular Mediators and Cellular Mechanisms

Priority Program:

Gene Regulation and Genome Organization in Archaea

Scientific Centers

Research is also carried out in scientific centers such as

Center for Biomolecular Magnetic Resonance (BMRZ)
Center for Drug Research, Development and Safety (ZAFES)
Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Africa (ZIAF)
Center for Financial Studies (CFS)
Center for Scientific Computing (CSC)
Center for Membrane Proteomics (CMP)
Cluster of Excellence Frankfurt Macromolecular Complexes (CEF)
Cornelia Goethe Center for Women’s and Gender Studies. (CGC)
E-Finance Lab
Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS)
Frankfurt Institute for Molecular Life Sciences (FMLS)
House of Finance
Institute for Law and Finance (ILF)

House of Finance

On 30 May 2008, the House of Finance relocated to a new building designed by the architects Kleihues+Kleihues that is located in Frankfurt University’s “Campus Westend”. The dominant feature of this campus is the “IG Farben” Building by the architect Hans Poelzig. This building is an example of neoclassicist architecture, which now lives on in the House of Finance and the other new buildings on the campus. This style was chosen according to the wish of the building contractor for "a symbol for the scientific and mercantile german manpower, made out of iron and stone", as the "IG-Farben"-director at the time of the construction, Baron von Schnitzler, stated in his opening speech of October 1930. The upper floors of the HoF building have several separate offices as well as shared office space for researchers and students. The ground floor is open to the public and welcomes visitors with a spacious, naturally lit foyer that leads to lecture halls, seminar rooms and the information center, our 24-h reference library. The ground floor also accommodates computer rooms and a café. The floors, walls and ceiling of the foyer are decorated with a grid design that is continued throughout the entire building. Inspired by Raphael's mural, The School of Athens, comes this design into its own, in the flooring.

Goethe Business School

The Goethe Business School is a Graduate Business School in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, set up as an independent, non-profit foundation under private law, held by Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Founded in 2004, Goethe Business School (GBS) is the center for management education of Frankfurt University. Goethe Business School is AACSB accredited and is located in the heart of Frankfurt am Main, the largest Financial Centre of Continental Europe. Goethe Business School is part of the highly respected House of Finance at Goethe University Frankfurt’s Westend Campus. The programs at GBS are taught by much acclaimed faculty members of the University’s Faculty of Economics and Business Administration as well as internationally reputed visiting professors. In the recent past professors teaching at GBS programs have taught at schools such as the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, Duke University, University of North Carolina, Nottingham University, Grenoble Ecole de Management, Tongji University among many others. The school launched its highly competitive full time MBA program in 2009 which consists of more than 70% International students. The Chairman of the Board at GBS, Rolf-E. Breuer, is former Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Bank. Goethe Business School has a partnership in Executive Education with the Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad.

Currently, Goethe Business School offers three programs; a Full Time MBA, EMBA in Alliance with Duke University and an EMFA program. GBS also offers a number of executive programs.

The Deutsche Bank Prize

The Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics honors renowned researchers who have made influential contributions to the fields of finance and money and macroeconomics, and whose work has led to practical and policy-relevant results. It is awarded biannually, since 2005, by the Center for Financial Studies, in partnership with Goethe University Frankfurt. The award carries an endowment of €50,000, which is donated by the Stiftungsfonds Deutsche Bank im Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft.

Notable faculty (excerpt)

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969), double Ordinarius of philosophy and sociology and member of the Frankfurt School
Hans Bethe, theoretical physicist (Nobel Prize 1967)
Max Born, theoretical physicist and mathematician (Nobel Prize 1954)
Klaus Bringmann, scientist
Rolf van Dick, social psychologist
Paul Ehrlich, Nobel Prize Winner 1908
Walter Gerlach, theoretical physicist
Walter Hallstein (1901–1982), first President of the European Commission
Helmut Kiener, psychologist turned investment professional, founder of the ponzi scheme K1 fund
Vladimir Košak, economist, lawyer, politician and diplomat
Boudewijn Sirks, Professor of the History of Ancient Law from 1997 to 2005, later Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford
Horst Stöcker, theoretical physicist
Alexander R. Todd, Baron Todd, chemist

Nobel Prize Winners (Alumni & Faculty)

Reinhard Selten
Horst Ludwig Störmer
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard
Günter Blobel
Gerd Binnig
Hans Bethe
Alexander Robertus Todd
Max von Laue
Karl Ziegler
Max Born
Otto Stern
Paul Karrer
Paul Ehrlich
Hartmut Michel

Rankings

World Rankings (2011)

ARWU World = 100
QS World University Rankings= 182
Times Higher Education World University Rankings= 172

QS World University Rankings of 2010 ranked Goethe University Frankfurt 195th in the world. Its individual subject rankings were: 106th in Arts & Humanities, 154th in Life Sciences & Biomedicine, 207th in Natural Sciences, and 101st in Social Sciences.