Bielefeld University is a university in Bielefeld in Germany

Bielefeld University

Bielefeld University
Universität Bielefeld
Bielefeld University logo
Established	September 5, 1969
Chancellor	Hans-Jürgen Simm
President	Gerhard Sagerer
Admin. staff	1,585
Students	17,554
Location	Bielefeld, Northrhine-Westphalia, Germany 52°02′16″N 8°29′35″E / 52.03778°N 8.49306°E / 52.03778; 8.49306Coordinates: 52°02′16″N 8°29′35″E / 52.03778°N 8.49306°E / 52.03778; 8.49306
Website	www.uni-bielefeld.de

Bielefeld University is a university in Bielefeld, Germany. Founded in 1969, it is one of the country's newer universities, and considers itself a "reform" university, following a different style of organization and teaching than the established universities. In particular, the university aims to "re-establish the unity between research and teaching", and so all its faculty teach courses in their area of research. The university also stresses a focus on interdisciplinary research, helped by the architecture, which encloses all faculties in one great structure.

It is among the first of the German universities to completely switch some faculties (e.g. biology) to Bachelor/Master-degrees as part of the Bologna process.

Bielefeld University

The central hall of the university

Bielefeld University on the north side of Teutoburg Forest.

Faculties

While Bielefeld University offers many options to study, it is well known for its faculty of sociology. It is associated with Norbert Elias and Niklas Luhmann, who were professors there. The faculty of history launched the "Bielefeld School" of Social History under Hans-Ulrich Wehler, while the Laborschule and Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) are projects of the faculty of educational science.The faculty of mathematics is also highly regarded. The Academic Ranking of World Universities of 2010 places Bielefeld in terms of mathematics among the four best universities of Germany, the 21 best universities of Europe and 51 to 76 best universities in the world, which confirms the ranking of 2009. In the Times Higher Education World University Rankings of 2010-2011 Bielefeld is placed among the top 50 engineering & technology universities. The German Center for Higher Education Development Excellence Ranking, which measures academic performance of European graduate programs in biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics, placed Bielefeld in the excellence group for mathematics, together with such renowned universities as Cambridge and ETH Zürich.

The university has the following faculties:

• Faculty of biology
• Faculty of chemistry
• Faculty of history, philosophy and theology
  1. Department of history
  2. Department of philosophy
  3. Department of theology
• Faculty of public health
• Faculty of linguistics and literature
  1. Department of art and music
• Faculty of mathematics
• Faculty of educational science
• Faculty of physics
• Faculty of psychology and sports
• Faculty of Law
• Faculty of sociology
• Faculty of technology
• Faculty of business administration and economics

Subject

• Art and Music
• Biology
• Business and Economics
• Chemistry
• Earth Sciences
• Educational Science and Media Science
• Gender Studies
• History
• Informatics
• Law
• Linguistics and Literary Studies
• Mathematics
• Philosophy
• Physics
• Psychology
• Public Health
• Sociology
• Sports
• Theology

 Central academic institutes

• Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF)
• Institute for interdisciplinary research on conflict and violence (IKG)
• CeBiTec - Center for Biotechnology
• CITEC - Cognitive Interaction Technology (Center of Excellence)
• Research Institute for Cognition and Robotics (CoR-Lab)
• Interdisciplinary Centre of Women's and Gender Studies 
• Institute for the Simulation of Complex Systems (ISKOS)
• Institute of Science and Technology Studies (IWT)
• Institute of Mathemathical Economics (IMW)
• Research Centre for Mathematical Modelling (FSPM)
• Teacher Training Centre (ZfL - in German)

Oberstufen-Kolleg at the University of Bielefeld

The Oberstufen-Kolleg is a UNESCO Project School and as such it aims for international understanding and cooperation. Since 1998, the Kolleg has worked together with the German School of Guayaquil in a charitable project to help in the development of the town of Daular, Ecuador,which project won a United Nations Award in 2006/2007 for its unique international concept.

Library

Bielefeld University Library occupies most of the first floor of the main university building and contains over 2.2 million volumes. It has long opening hours and is open every day of the year, from 08:00 until 01:00 Monday to Friday, and from 09:00 to 22:00 during weekends and public holidays.

The library's projects include the exploration and development of tools and systems to improve access to an increasing number of electronic resources. It works with commercial system suppliers to meet the specific needs of academic libraries—collaborations that have resulted in developments such as BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine), by which metadata is collected from scientific repository servers and indexed, along with data from selected web sites and data collections, using FAST software.

Bielefeld University Library represents with its collection of about 2 mill. books and journals and its permanently growing choice of scientifically relevant electronic fulltexts not only the main library of Bielefeld University which was founded in 1967, but also one of the most important general libraries of the whole region of EastWestphalia-Lippe. About 95 % of the collection is for open access and arranged by subject in the reading rooms, which occupy almost the entire first floor of the building. With opening hours until 1 am throughout the week and 10 pm on weekends, Bielefeld University Library is one of the front-runners among German libraries.

The main remit of the library is to provide students and scholars of the University with literature and information for academic teaching and scientific research. The services are also open to the general public, including public authorities, businesses, hospitals and schools of the region.

 

For many years, Bielefeld University Library has committed itself to its primary goal of optimizing existing library services and implementing new, user-oriented ones. The library works on modular systems for optimizing the e-library, particularly in the field of search engine technology, scholarly publishing, e-learning, bibliographic and fulltext databases as well as the development of digital collections. For these projects the library cooperates with national and international partners and receives funding from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Science and Research.

Bielefeld University Library is the host of the International Bielefeld Conference series, a conference that offers every three years a major strategic discussion forum for library managers from all over Europe and beyond.

Director: Dr Michael Höppner

Some Statistical Data for 2011

• Holdings: 2,200,000 volumes
• Journals: 4,000 print journals (subscriptions), 20,000 licensed electronic journals
• Reader workplaces: 2,050 (about 1,900 WLAN compatible workplaces, 165 custom-built computer workplaces)
• Library visits: 1,700,000
• Active registered users: 33,000
• Total number of loans incl. renewals: 1,300,000

History and Innovations

1967

Establishment of the library

1977

Implementation of the first online cataloguing system in Germany (IBAS)

1979

Public access to the online cataloguing system

1988

Launch of the first German university library catalogue on CD-ROM, use of PC networks

1993

Introduction of the document delivery system JASON developed by the library, cooperation of North Rhine-Westphalian university libraries

1995

Development of the first German library project for a cooperative electronic information supply (IBIS)

1997

Beginning of digitization of printed publications and their provision on the Internet; development of the mass storage and document management system BIEBLIS

1998

Introduction of JASON-Subito developed by the library. It allows online ordering of North Rhine-Westphalian periodical articles throughout Germany. Online access to journals available in full text versions (i.a. by consortial agreements with publishers)

1999

Launch of the Digital Library NRW, developed by the library in 1998 - 2000

2002

Development of a netbased integrated learning and teaching environment (online learning) based on Blackboard. Introduction of an online interlibrary loan system

2003

Introduction of a university publications server (BieSOn) based on OPUS

2004

Launch of the Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) on the basis of FAST Data Search Software

2006

Development of an e-scholarship repository which makes the research results of Bielefeld University accessible for the global scientific community
Participation in the European Commission project DRIVER (Digital Repository Infrastructure Vision for European Research), which aims at cross-linking scientific repositories of European universities and research institutions (project period 2006 - 2009).

2008

The e-scholarship repository, now called BiPrints, is put into operation.
Start of the enhancement of the scholarly publishing services

2009

Migration of the library catalogue in co-operation with Heidelberg University Library. It is now based on search engine technology and makes use of Web 2.0 tools.

2010

The publication data service PUB (Publications at Bielefeld University) which is based on the LUUR system and has been developed jointly by the universities of Lund and Ghent, is put into operation. PUB facilitates the creation and administration of personal publication lists which can easily be integrated into the personal website of the Bielefeld academic staff. Moreover, PUB represents the beginning of a fundamental modernization of the university's research information system.

2011

The university publication server BieSOn and the e-scholarship repository BiPrints are merged into PUB and serve as subcollections of PUB. They are now called PUB Theses and PUB OA (Open Access).
Implementation of RFID technology: Self-service stations for borrowing, renewing and returning library items are installed.

2012

Opening of Lernort_B1: Professional peer-learning counselling. Launch of Weblog and Twitter channel. Implementation of an article search module (EBSCO Discovery Service / EDS) in the library catalogue.

Services

• Library catalogue with both electronic and printed documents indexed
• BASE search engine: integrated search in heterogeneous scientific resources worldwide
• Metasearch (Digital Library NRW): simultaneous search in numerous catalogues and databases followed by an availability determination
• PUB - Publications at Bielefeld University: publication data service for the creation and administration of personal publication lists
• both licensed and freely accessible electronic full text journals
• both licensed and freely accessible databases
• own digitized imprints
• interlibrary loan online, various document delivery services
• eLearning (netbased learning and teaching portal "Stud.IP")
• discussion rooms with SMART Board equipment (in cooperation with Service Center Medien and Hochschulrechenzentrum)
• Continuous user training on information literacy (search for literature and information, Citavi, database introductions, internet searching, SMART Boards, Stud.IP)
• 3D virtual library tour, info clips on library related essentials
• interactive tutorial on online searching
• Ask a Librarian 
• Blog, Twitter, Newsletter, RSS-Feed

 

The library has outstandingly long opening hours. It is open 111 hours per week, 353 days per year: Mon - Fri 8.00 hrs - 1.00 hrs; Sat, Sun, and public holidays 9.00 hrs - 22.00 hrs.

More than 95 % of the collection are directly accessible in the departmental libraries, arranged in classified order on open shelves.

(Datastatus: April 2012)

Recently Bielefeld University Library was assessed second best in the nationwide CHE university ranking - a numerical overview of the Bielefeld University Library:

• 2,200,000 volumes
• 1,300,000 loans and renewals per year
• 34,000 visitors per week
• 33,000 active registered users
• 20,000 licensed electronic journals
• 4,000 journal subscriptions
• 3,400 databases
• 2,050 workstations for readers
• 1,400 psychological tests
• 529 years - the age of the oldest book in our collection
• 500 library tuitions with 9,000 participants
• 165 public PC-workstations for users
• 133 metres above sea level (1st floor)
• 111 opening hours per week
• 95 percent of the holdings on open shelves
• 22 departmental libraries
• 16 rooms for team work, equipped with 4 SMART Boards
• 2 discussion areas

Protests against tuition fees

Bielefeld University was one of the centers of student protests in the fight against the introduction of tuition fees. In the course of the protests, the central hall and the university president's office were occupied by protesting students for over a month. In a vote organised by the AStA and the students parliament, about 94 percent of the participants voted against the introduction of tuition fees, although only 22 percent of the students cast their vote. This is comparable to similar results at other German universities.

In its session of July 12, 2006, the university senate decided to introduce tuition fees of €500 per semester, beginning in 2007.

In August 2006, a universal key for the university went missing during a senate session. After that, multiple cases of arson and defacement of university property were reported. University president Dieter Timmermann was a particular target of these attacks. The cost of the damage, mainly due to the replacement of thousands of locks, was estimated at over a million euros.

Location

The university is located in the west of Bielefeld next to the Teutoburg Forest. The main building, which houses all the faculties and institutes, as well as the large library, is a functional concrete structure, typical of the 1960s.Intercity trains running between Cologne/Bonn and Berlin stop regularly at Bielefeld, and the university can be accessed via city tram (Line 4) in about 10 minutes from the city center—or in about 15 minutes by car. The nearest airport, Paderborn/Lippstadt, is about 50 kilometres southeast of Bielefeld.

Research 

Research profile

• Research Profile of Bielefeld University
• Focus of Research
• Collaborative Research Centres (SFB)
• Research Units
• Research Training Group (RTG)
• Graduate Schools
• Cluster of Excellence 277
• "Cognitive Interaction Technology" (CITEC)
• Cluster of Excellence 268
• "Graduate School in History and Sociology" (BGHS)
• Faculties and Departments
• Central Academic Institutes
• Academic Institutes Within the Faculties
• Research Networks
• Research Cooperation Empirische Hochschulforschung
• [Empirical Research on Higher Education] (in German)
• International Cooperations

Promotion of Research

• Third Party Funding Applications and Management Guideline
  (in German)
• Current Sponsorships (in German)
• Promotion of Young Academics/Scholarship Awards (in German)
• National and International Promotion of Research (in German)
• 7th EU Research Framework Programme (in German)
• Regional Cooperations (in German)

Knowledge and Technology Transfer

• Knowledge- and Technology Transfer
• Services of Department (FFT)
  [Department for Research Administration and Technology Transfer]

We conduct research and promote young researchers at the highest international level in five strategic research areas through top-quality collaborative research projects and central academic institutes, as well as effective support for individual third-party funded research projects.

• Theories and Methodologies in the Humanities and Social Sciences
• Human Development, Conflict and Violence
• Interactive Intelligent Systems
• Molecular and Nano Sciences
• Theoretical Sciences

The University's founding generation already pursued a vision of close collaboration between historians and sociologists, and a focus on theoretical and methodological questions has brought the disciplines ever closer together. The Bielefeld school of social history, research on historical semantics, and systems theory have become hallmarks. The establishment of the joint Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology (BGHS) in 2007 represented an important step towards long-term consolidation of this interdisciplinary cooperation. With the initiative for a Cluster of Excellence "Communicating Comparisons: From the Onset of Modernity to World Society" historians and sociologists in Bielefeld have adopted a common research programme and widened interdisciplinary cooperation to include law and philosophy.

Education science and psychology along with history, literature, law, health sciences, philosophy, theology, as well as the internationally renowned Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence (IKG - Institut für Interdisziplinäre Konflikt- und Gewaltforschung) all participate in this strategic research area. It concerns the complex processes of human development, encompassing child development and all the social interactions and institutions that shape human existence in different societies and contexts. Sophisticated interdisciplinary and international research uncovers the causes and consequences of individual harm and destruction in private and public institutions associated with collective ethnic/cultural, religious, political, and institutional violence.

This strategic research area focuses on gaining a better understanding of the mechanisms that allow humans, animals, and artificial systems to act autonomously in complex environments and to communicate with each other. Research, in which computer science, biology, psychology, sports science, linguistics, and physics are all involved, currently concentrates on four key issues: motion intelligence, attention, situated communication, and memory and learning. This is primarily pure research, but with an eye to application and the intention to bring about the development of prototypes. There is close cooperation with national and international industrial partners (e.g. Miele, Bertelsmann, Honda), as well as with important partners in the health sector. The heart of this strategic research area is the Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) Cluster of Excellence approved in 2007.

In this broad field the University has carved itself a nationally and internationally prominent niche with a focused profile at the intersection of physics, chemistry, biology, and bioinformatics. Current research focuses range from nanolayers and single-molecule processes through to bacterial, plant, and animal cells. They are driven by interdisciplinary collaboration, in part located at the Centre for Biotechnology (CeBiTec). Even if this strategic research area is largely about toplevel pure research, it has often led to high-level industrial collaboration, e.g. with E.ON, Miele, Schüco International, and Siemens.

Close cooperation between mathematics, theoretical physics, and business administration and economics (especially the Institute of Mathematical Economics, IMW - Institut für mathematische Wirtschaftsforschung) has a long tradition in Bielefeld that has produced a series of major collaborative projects. Additionally - and this is probably unique in Germany - pure and applied mathematicians work closely together in a DFG Collaborative Research Centre. Important current research interests in the theoretical sciences are spectral structures and topological methods, stochastics and modelling of real systems, economic behaviour and interaction models, and the theory of quantum fields and strongly interacting matter.

Cutting across the five strategic research areas, our well-known gender research institutionalised at the Interdisciplinary Centre of Women's and Gender Studies (IFF - Interdisziplinäres Institut für Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung) (in German) and the internationally renowned Science Studies based at the Institute for Science and Technology Studies (IWT - Institut für Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung) represent further interdisciplinary research focuses.
The strategy of interdisciplinary networking within and between the strategic research areas has created dynamic, integrative research structures. No area at Bielefeld - not even the smallest departments (e.g. Philosophy, Sports Science) - is per se detached from these trendsetting developments.

With the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF - Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung) Bielefeld University has possessed since its foundation an Institute for Advanced Study that numbers among the most internationally renowned and successful institutions of its type. Founded in 1968 as the University's interdisciplinary nucleus, the ZiF still pursues its original mission of promoting innovative and interdisciplinary research projects. Unlike other similar institutes in Germany, the ZiF supports only collaborative research projects.

The ZiF is highly attractive internationally, attracting 300 researchers from abroad to conferences and workshops every year. International researchers are strongly represented in the various ZiF funding formats, making up 65 percent of participants. The ZiF can build on an impressive track record: ZiF projects provided crucial inspiration for developing interdisciplinary research strands that have often prepared the ground for larger collaborative research projects at Bielefeld University. Four later Nobel laureates participated in research groups at the ZiF and completed part of their theoretical work here (Myerson, Selten, Harsanyi, Ostrom).

http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/zif/

To generate synergies and increase efficiency significant parts of the research infrastructure at Bielefeld University are organised and networked on a university-wide basis. This is greatly assisted by the compact nature of the main university building.
According to the relevant rankings and competitions the university library is one of the best and most innovative in Germany both in terms of user satisfaction and on account of its pioneering role in the fields of digital scientific communication, electronic publishing, open access, eLearning, eScience, scientific data services, and search engine technologies.
At Bielefeld University researchers in many disciplines, such as molecular sciences, behaviour studies, robotics, psychology, linguistics, sociology and history have collected and work with large samples of qualitative and quantitative data of largely diverging format. In an cooperative effort the CeBiTec, CITEC, the Centre for Statistics, and the Data Service Centre for Business and Organisational Data, the university library and the computing centre are utilising their specific expertise in different fields and currently creating a new type of data infrastructure.
Networked technology platforms have been established in fields ranging from natural sciences and technology through to linguistics and psychology: Examples include the Bioinformatics Resource Facility (CeBiTec); a Hightech Microscopy Platform for Nanoimaging and Nanoengineering, and the CITEC Central Lab. All technology platforms provide a framework for our strategic research areas to improve the competitiveness and sustainability of their research. They have already proved to be powerful actors in the development of novel research themes.

Collaborative Research Centres (SFB) are long-term higher education research institutions in which researchers can work together in programmes going beyond their own subject boundaries. Their tasks also include promoting young academics. They are financed by the German Research Foundation (DFG), with funding generally being granted for up to 12 years with each funding period lasting 3 to 4 years.

		Participating Faculties
	CRC 584: The Political as Communicative Space in History - since 01.07.2001	Faculty of History, Philosophy and Theology
	CRC 613: Physics of single molecul processes and molecular recognition in organic systems - since 01.01.2002 (in German)	Faculty of Physics, Faculty of Chemistry and Faculty of Biology
	CRC 701: Spectral Structures and Topological Methods in Mathematics - since 01.07.2005	Faculty of Mathematics
	CRC 673: Alignment in Communication - since 01.07.2006	Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Studies and Faculty of Technology
	CRC 882: Von Heterogenitäten zu Ungleichheiten (since 01.07.2011)	Faculty of Sociology, Faculty of Educational Science, Faculty of Health Science, Faculty of Law, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, University Library Bielefeld, German Institute of Economic Research Berlin, Institute of Psychology, University Erlangen-Nürnberg
Participation in Collaborative Research Centres (SFB):
	CRC 686 - Model-Based Control of Homogenized Low-Temperature Combustion - since 2006	Faculty of Chemistry, RWTH Aachen

	former Collaborative Research Centres (SFB) (in German)
	CRCs in Germany, Overview of the German Research Foundation (DFG)

Research Networks

Bielefeld University participates in the following research networks:

  NRW-Forschungsverbund "Rehabilitationswissenschaften"
[NRW research network for rehabilitation science] (in German)
The research network NRW-Forschungsverbund "Rehabilitationswissenschaften" [NRW research network for rehabilitation science] has been organized to build up research structures for rehabilitation science in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and consolidate the scientific basis of medicinal rehabilitation. Research should be interdisciplinary and be carried out in consortia of higher education institutions, rehabilitation clinics, and the insurance providers who pay for rehabilitation.

  Pflegeforschungsverbund NRW [NRW nursing research network]
The central interest of the new Pflegeforschungsverbund NRW [NRW nursing research network] at Bielefeld University's Faculty of Health Sciences is in optimizing ways of coping with chronic illness.

 Bielefeld Bonn Stochastics - Research Center BiBoS
Irregular phenomena play a role in almost all fields of science and technology. Scientists have to handle systems that evolve erratically under the influence of random "perturbations". Such phenomena are, at best, accessible to statistical description alone. The mathematical framework for such descriptions is stochastic analysis (of the stochastic processes).

Der Arbeitskreis Technikfolgenabschätzung und-bewertung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen AKTAB NRW [NRW workgroup for estimating and appraising the consequences of technology] (in German)
The Arbeitskreis Technikfolgenabschätzung und-bewertung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen - AKTAB NRW [NRW workgroup for estimating and appraising the consequences of technology] is an initiative of the NRW Science Ministry. It is composed of representatives from science, business, administration, and the general public who are facing social change and predominantly technological innovations. These are the people who are having to deal with their consequences, their evaluation, and their design in daily research and practice.

  UmweltFORUM [Environment forum] (in German)
The UmweltFORUM [Environment forum] belongs to the Institute of Science and Technology Studies. It provides an infrastructure for gathering and exchanging information on projects, campaigns, and events addressing environmentally relevant issues at Bielefeld University.

Photo of University