RWTH Aachen University

RWTH Aachen University
Rheinisch-Westfälische
Technische Hochschule Aachen
Motto Zukunft denken[1]
Motto in English
 Thinking the future
Established 10 October 1870
Type Public
Budget $1.01 billion (2012)[2]
€794 million
(2012; including university hospital)
-State: €423 million
-Third-party funds: €321 million[3]
Tuition fees: €18 million
Rector Ernst M. Schmachtenberg
Academic staff
 496 professors + 4,492 academic staff
Administrative staff
 3,059 (including university hospital)
Students 40,025 (WS 2013/14[4])
Location Aachen, NRW, Germany
Campus Urban, 620 acres (250 ha)[5]
Colors Blue and White         
Affiliations Domestic:
DFG
German Excellence Initiative
TU9
International:
ALMA
CESAER
IDEA League
SEFI
TIME
UNITECH International
PEGASUS
Website www.rwth-aachen.de
SuperC, landmark of RWTH Aachen and the central service building for students

RWTH Aachen University (Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen)[6] (German pronunciation: [ɛʀveːteːhaː ˈʔaːxən]) is a research university of technology located in Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With over 40,000 students enrolled in 130 study programs, it is the largest technical university in Germany.[2][4] The institution maintains close links to industry and accounts for the highest amount of third-party funds of all German universities in both absolute and relative terms per faculty member.[7]

In 2007, RWTH Aachen was chosen by DFG as one of nine German Universities of Excellence for its future concept RWTH 2020: Meeting Global Challenges and additionally won funding for one graduate school and three clusters of excellence.[8] In 2012, RWTH Aachen was selected again as a University of Excellence and altogether financially endowed for one graduate school and two clusters of excellence. RWTH Aachen is one of only six German universities to retain this status from the previous funding period of 2007 - 2012.[9]

RWTH Aachen is a founding member of IDEA League,[10] a strategic alliance of four leading universities of technology in Europe. The university is also a member of TU9,[11] DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft)[12] and the Top Industrial Managers for Europe[13] network.

History

On 25 January 1858, prince Frederic William of Prussia, the later German emperor, was presented a donation of 5,000 talers for charity, raised by the Aachener und Münchener Feuer-Versicherungs-Gesellschaft, the precursor of the AachenMünchener insurance company. In March, the prince chose to use the donation to found the first Prussian institute of technology somewhere in the Rhine province. The seat of the institution remained undecided over years; while the prince initially favored Koblenz, the cities of Aachen, Bonn, Cologne and Düsseldorf also applied, with Aachen and Cologne being the main competitors. Aachen finally won with a financing concept backed by the insurance company and local banks.[14] Groundbreaking for the new Polytechnikum took place on 15 May 1865 and lectures started amidst the Franco-Prussian War on 10 October 1870 with 223 students and 32 teachers. Its primary purpose was to educate engineers, especially for the mining industry in the Ruhr area; there were schools of chemistry, electrical and mechanical engineering as well as an introductory general school that taught mathematics and natural sciences and few social sciences.

Main Building of the RWTH Aachen. It was built in 1870.

The first years were characterized by the unclear position of the new Prussian polytechnika (which officially were no universities). Their reputation in society was low and the number of students decreased. This began to change in 1880 when the early RWTH, amongst others, was reorganized as a Royal Technical University, gained a seat in the Prussian House of Lords and was finally granted the right to bestow PhD (1898) degrees and Diplom titles (introduced in 1902). The same year, over 800 male students had been enrolled; the first women were admitted in 1909. World War I, however, was a serious setback for the university. Many students voluntarily joined and died in the war and parts of the university were shortly occupied or confiscated.

While the (then no more royal) TH Aachen flourished in the 1920s with the introduction of the more independent faculties, several new institutes and the general students' committee, first signs of nationalist radicalization were also visible within the university. The Third Reich's Gleichschaltung of the TH in 1933 was met with relatively low resistance from both students and faculty. Beginning in September 1933, Jewish and (alleged) Communist professors (and from 1937 on also students) were systematically persecuted and excluded from the university. Vacant Chairs were increasingly given to NSDAP party members or sympathizers.[15] The freedom of research and teaching was severely limited and institutes important for the regime's plans were systematically established, existing chairs promoted. Shortly closed in 1939, the TH continued courses in 1940, although with a low number of students. On 21 October 1944, when Aachen capitulated, more than 70% of all buildings of the university were destroyed or heavily damaged.

After World War II, the university recovered and expanded quickly. In the 1950s, many professors who had been removed because of their alleged affiliation with the Nazi party were allowed to return and a multitude of new institutes were founded. By the late 1960s, the TH had 10,000 students, placing it on top of all German technical universities. With the foundation of a philosophical and a medical faculty in 1965 and 1966, respectively, the university became a bit more "universal". It was especially the newly founded faculties that began attracting new students, and the number of students almost doubled twice from 1970 (10,000) to 1980 (more than 25,000) and from 1980 to 1990 (more than 37,000). Today, the average number of students is around 30,000, with exactly one third of all students being women in the winter term of 2007/2008. By relative terms, the most popular study programs are mechanical engineering (23.6%), medicine (9%), electrical engineering (8.8%), computer science (7.1%), economics (5.1%) and architecture (5%).

Recent developments

"Red lecture hall" at the central campus

In December 2006, RWTH Aachen and the Sultanate of Oman signed an agreement to establish a private German University of Technology in Muscat. Professors from Aachen aided at developing the curricula for the currently five study programs and scientific staff took over some of the first courses.[16]

In 2007, RWTH Aachen was chosen as one of nine German Universities of Excellence for its future concept RWTH 2020: Meeting Global Challenges, earning it the connotation of being an elite university. However, although the list of universities honored for their future concepts mostly consists of large and already respected institutions, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research claimed that the initiative was aimed at promoting universities with a dedicated future concept so they could continue researching on an international level.[17] Having won funds in all three lines of funding, the process brought RWTH Aachen University an additional total funding of € 180 million from 2007-2011. The other two lines of funding were graduate schools, where the Aachen Institute for Advanced Study in Computational Engineering Science received funding and so-called "clusters of excellence", where RWTH Aachen managed to win funding for the three clusters Ultra High-Speed Mobile Information and Communication (UMIC), Integrative Production Technology for High-wage Countries and Tailor-Made Fuels from Biomass (TMFB).[18]

View towards the city of Aachen from SuperC, a central building for students next to the main building at the midtown campus

Campus

RWTH Aachen University's 620-acre (250 ha) campus is located in the north-western part of the city Aachen. There are two core areas - midtown and Melaten district. The Main Building, SuperC student's center and the Kármán Hall are 500 m away from the city centre with the Aachen Cathedral, the Audimax (biggest lecture hall) and the main refectory are 200 m farther. Other points of interest include the university's botanical garden (Botanischer Garten Aachen).

The RWTH has external facilities in Jülich and Essen and owns, together with the University of Stuttgart, a house in Kleinwalsertal in the Austrian Alps.

The university is currently expanding in the city center and Melaten district. The SuperC, the new central service building for students, was opened in 2008. The groundbreaking for the new Campus-Melaten was in 2009.

Internationality

Double degrees and student mobility are promoted with other technology universities through the TIME (Top Industrial Managers for Europe) network. Furthermore the RWTH is member of the IDEA League, which is a strategic partnership among five of Europe's leading research universities, including TU Delft, Imperial College London, ETH Zürich and ParisTech [19] and was the first German university starting an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program in 2008.

Compared to other German universities the RWTH Aachen received the highest amount of funds granted by third-party donors in the last years.[20]

Almost 5,200 international students are currently enrolled within the undergraduate, graduate or PhD programme. Compared to other German universities the portion of international students at the RWTH Aachen is higher-than-average.[21] The proximity of Aachen to the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg combined with the subsequent exposure to a variety of cultural heritages has placed RWTH Aachen University in a unique position with regards to the reflection and promotion of international aspects and intensive interaction with other universities.

Rankings

National rankings regularly identify RWTH Aachen as the best university in Germany in the fields of engineering (especially mechanical engineering, chemical engineering and electrical engineering), as well as amongst the top three in computer science, physics, chemistry, and medicine.[22][23][24][25][26] The 2013 QS World University Rankings ranked the university 17th in the world in mechanical engineering (by subject) and 28th in engineering and technology (by faculty).[27][28]

On the national level, two prominent German newspapers, “Handelsblatt“ and “Wirtschaftswoche“, currently rank RWTH Aachen the first place in Germany in the fields of mechanical engineering (including chemical engineering), electrical engineering, industrial engineering, and computer science.[29] In the latest ranking published by DAAD together with Centre for Higher Education Development and Die Zeit, RWTH Aachen also stands on top among other German universities in the aforementioned fields of engineering and computer science.[30]

Ranking20142013201220112010
QS World University Rankings[31]147147150140158
QS Faculty Rankings: Engineering & Technology[32]42283539
QS Faculty Rankings: Natural Sciences[32]3647838259
QS Subject Rankings: Mechanical Engineering[33] 18172347
QS Subject Rankings: Electrical Engineering[33] 4551-10051-10051-100
QS Subject Rankings: Physics[33] 37302648
QS Subject Rankings: Chemical Engineering [33] 364550-10050-100
QS Subject Rankings: Materials Science [33] 25454750-100
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings156129154168182
The Times Higher Education Reputation Ranking (World)91-100----
The Times Higher Education Subject Rankings: Engineering and Technology5439---
The Times Higher Education Subject Rankings: Physical Sciences7861---
Research Performance Index (Engineering)96
Research Performance Index (For Pure, Natural, and Mathematical Sciences)79
Academic Ranking of World Universities (Mathematics)101-15076-10076-100-77-100
Academic Ranking of World Universities (Chemistry)51-75151-200151-200--
Academic Ranking of World Universities (World)201-300201-300201-300201-300201-300

Organisation

RWTH Aachen is run by the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Since the summer semester of 2004 the state of North Rhine-Westphalia allowed universities to request a maximum of €500 per semester as tuition fees. Since the summer semester of 2007, all students enrolled at the RWTH Aachen have to pay these €500, if they are not exempt for one of several reasons put forth by the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. In the past, tuition fees applied solely for long-term students and second studies. Almost all basic lectures are held in German, but an increasing number of master programs require proficiency in English for admission.

Institute for physical chemistry

The RWTH is divided into nine (previously ten) faculties:

F 1 - Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science and Natural Sciences
F 2 - Faculty of Architecture
F 3 - Faculty of Civil Engineering
F 4 - Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
F 5 - Faculty of Georesources and Materials Engineering
F 6 - Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology
F 7 - Faculty of Arts and Humanities
F 8 - School of Business and Economics
F 10 - Faculty of Medicine

Faculty nine was pedagogical sciences, but it was abandoned in 1989. Teacher education, however, continued.[34]

Klinikum Aachen (University hospital)

Fraunhofer-Institutes

The university cooperates with the Fraunhofer-Institutes situated in the Melaten district of Aachen. The institutes offer workshops, courses and lectures for the students of RWTH Aachen.

Fraunhofer-Institute for molecular biology and applied ecology

Jülich-Aachen Research Alliance (JARA)

The Jülich-Aachen Research Alliance (JARA) was founded by the RWTH Aachen and Forschungszentrum Jülich in 2007.[35] Five sections are coordinated by the research facilities:

Associations

Future

RWTH Aachen University plans a fundamental enlargement and restructuring of its campus for the close future. The new campus areas shall provide space for clusters of research institutions and industry partners to offer a better integration of research and technology. Approximately 10,000 new jobs are prospected to be created. Current plans state that construction activities shall begin in 2009. The total investment is roughly €2 billion.[43]

Notable faculty and alumni

RWTH Aachen University has educated several notable individuals, including some Nobel laureates in physics and chemistry. The scientists and alumni of the RWTH Aachen played a major role in chemistry, medicine, electrical, and mechanical engineering. For example, Nobel laureate Peter Debye received a degree in electrical engineering from RWTH Aachen and is known for the Debye model and Debye relaxation. Another example, Helmut Zahn and his team of the Institute for Textile Chemistry were the first who synthesised Insulin in 1963 and they were nominated for Nobel Prize.

Trivia

Notes and references

  1. ↑ RWTH Aachen uses this slogan in job advertisements for professors and YouTube videos .
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Daten & Fakten - RWTH AACHEN UNIVERSITY - Deutsch. Rwth-aachen.de (2011-12-12). Retrieved on 2013-09-18.
  3. ↑ Statistics of RWTH Aachen University (German; retrieved 2012-04-17)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Official statistics (retrieved 2012-04-17)
  5. ↑ RWTH Aachen Campus (German)
  6. ↑ "RWTH" is the abbreviation of "Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule", which translates literally into "Rheinish-Westphalian Technical High School". In german, high school is synonymic to university. The institution is in Germany commonly referred to as "RWTH Aachen" or simply "RWTH". The abbreviation remains untranslated in other languages to avoid the use of the "Hochschule" term, which is sometimes mistakenly translated as highschool. Sometimes, RWTH Aachen is also referred to as "TH Aachen" or "Aachen University".
    Note: The term "FH Aachen" does not refer to the RWTH but to the Fachhochschule Aachen, a university of applied sciences, which is also located in Aachen.
  7. ↑ Figures by the German Federal Statistical Office (German; retrieved 2011-02-11)
  8. ↑ Excellence-initiative.com
  9. ↑
  10. ↑ Idealeague.org
  11. ↑ TU9.de
  12. ↑ Dfg.de
  13. ↑ Time-association.org
  14. ↑ "Geschichte der RWTH Aachen", archives of RWTH Aachen university (German; retrieved 2009-04-11)
  15. ↑ "Geschichte der RWTH Aachen", archives of RWTH Aachen university (German; retrieved 2009-04-11)
  16. ↑ Annual report 2007/2008 of the Chair of Computer Science 5 (Information Systems) (retrieved 2009-04-11)
  17. ↑ Federal Ministry for Education and Research: Initiative for Excellence (retrieved 2009-04-11)
  18. ↑ Excellence Initiative at RWTH Aachen University (retrieved 2009-04-11)
  19. ↑ IDEA League - What is the IDEA League?
  20. ↑ Research Funding at RWTH Aachen University
  21. ↑ RWTH Aachen - International Office
  22. ↑ RWTH Aachen ranking report 2001-2010 (German; retrieved 2009-04-09)
  23. ↑ CHE report
  24. ↑ Ranking German Universities 2013
  25. ↑ (German) Uni-Ranking 2011: Die besten Unis für die Karriere - Trends - Erfolg - Wirtschaftswoche. Wiwo.de (2011-04-19). Retrieved on 2013-09-18.
  26. ↑ (German) WiWo Rankings 2013. Wiwo.de (2013). Retrieved on 2013-12-14.
  27. ↑ QS Ranking 2013 Mechanical Engineering
  28. ↑ QS Ranking 2013 Engineering and Technology
  29. ↑ Tim.rwth-aachen.de
  30. ↑ /deutschland/hochschulen/hochschulranking/06543.en.html Daad.de
  31. ↑ All Study Destinations. Top Universities. Retrieved on 2013-09-18.
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 QS overall- and faculty-rankings for RWTH Aachen, QS World University Rankings , retrieved on 2014-03-06.
  33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 33.2 33.3 33.4 Subject Rankings for RWTH Aachen, QS World University Rankings, retrieved on 2014-03-06.
  34. ↑ Rwth-aachen.de (Note the degree of 'Lehramt', i.e. the certification to teach at Gymnasium level)
  35. ↑ Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA)
  36. ↑ JARA Energy
  37. ↑
  38. ↑ Association of Indian Students in Aachen
  39. ↑ Association of Thai Students in Aachen
  40. ↑ Pakistan Student Association
  41. ↑ Fva.rwth-aachen.de
  42. ↑ Idaflieg.de
  43. ↑ Westdeutscher Rundfunk (German; retrieved 2011-02-20)
  44. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on the Special Charlemange Award for Pope John Paul II in 2004 (German; retrieved 2009-09-27)

External links

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Coordinates: 50°46′40″N 6°04′41″E / 50.77778°N 6.07806°E