The University of Konstanz () is a university in the city of Konstanz in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Its main campus was opened on the Gießberg in 1972 after being founded in 1966. The university is Germany's southernmost university and is situated on the shore of Lake Constance just four kilometres from the Swiss border. It has been successful in the Excellence Initiative.
The University of Konstanz cooperates with a number of institutions, such as Harvard, Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, the University of Chicago, UC Berkeley, University of Zurich, and the Balsillie School of International Affairs.
In addition to having approximately 11,500 students from around 100 countries, the university maintains over 220 partnerships with European universities as well as numerous international exchange programmes, thereby facilitating global networking. Students may choose from more than 100 degree programmes. Its library is open 24 hours a day and has more than two million books.
History Origins A university was briefly located in Konstanz during the 17th and 18th century. As a branch of the University of Freiburg, it was located in the Lanzenhof (today a building housing the administration of justice at the Untere Laube street) and existed from 1686 to 1698 as well as from 1713 to 1715.
The University of Konstanz was founded in 1966 as a reform university. In its early years it was located in various buildings in the inner city until 1972, when the campus was established on the Giessberg. The university logo was designed by Otl Aicher in 1980, one of the most well-known graphic designers of the 20th century.
Instead of creating institutes, the university was designed with (smaller than usual) departments and working groups, with a focus on developing teaching through research. In order to more easily transcend the boundaries between academic subjects and infrastructure, the Anglo-Saxon concept of the campus university was adapted, through which the administration and service providers such as the canteen and library have become easily accessible and centralised locations. The reform measures included the transformation of traditional learning and instructional mediums such as lectures to seminars or tutorials. The use of course-related performance assessments developed out of the implementation of these new measures.
Transitions The single-stage legal education and training was adapted by the university in the context of a pilot programme in the 1970s and 1980s, in which the practical phase and university study were closely interlinked. At the beginning, the university also offered basic studies in social science through which students of administrative science, economics and law completed their studies together.
After many of these projects expired, the university "reinvented" itself in accordance with the recommendations from the Mittelstraßcommission: To promote even more intense collaboration within the university, it was divided into three faculties with a total of 13 departments in 1999. The departments replaced the previous schools and working groups and the tasks and responsibilities of these schools have since been carried out and fulfilled by the faculties in accordance with the Landeshochschulgesetz LHG (state law on higher education). The university's consistent use of centralised service providers has not changed. The 24-hour library, which provides easy access to all of its books, is a well-known feature of the university.
University of Excellence The institutional strategy of the university, "Modell Konstanz – Towards a Culture of Creativity", was adopted on 19 October 2007 in the context of the German Excellence Initiative, which administered jointly by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Council of Science and Humanities. Additionally, four Collaborative Research Centres (CRC) funded by the DFG are currently operating at the University of Konstanz. The "Zentrum für den wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchs" (ZWN) or Centre for Young Researchers was recognized in this third funding line of the German Excellence Initiative and stirred great interest across Germany, leading the press to refer to the university as the "mini Harvard at Lake Constance".
The ZWN was created in 2001 to support junior researchers in gaining access to the highest possible amount of funding and flexibility for their research. It was successfully incorporated into the Zukunftskolleg in late 2007, which was again recognised in the second round of the Excellence Initiative in 2012. In that same year, the Zukunftskolleg successfully applied for co-financing from the EU-funded "Marie Curie Actions COFUND" programme in the amount of 6.24 million euros. The resulting Zukunftskolleg Incoming Fellowship Programme (ZIF-Marie-Curie-Programme) allowed the Zukunftskolleg to further develop its fellowship programme by adding one additional international component.
The DFG's 2018 Funding Atlas retrieved 20 July 2018] once again confirmed the University of Konstanz's top national rankings from 2015 retrieved 20 July 2018] in regard to external funding obtained from the DFG. When comparing the funding in terms of per-capita values for all academic staff members (including professors), the university climbed one position to 1st place in Germany. Calculated on the basis of professors alone, the university's per-capita external funding volume ranked 2nd. When counting all acdacemic staff members, the per-capita funding totals in the life sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences were ranked 1st in Germany.
The University of Konstanz's status as a research-oriented university of excellence was reaffirmed in the second round of the Excellence Initiative competition in 2012.About the Excellence Initiative, retrieved 23 October 2017 The university has also successfully participated in the Professorinnenprogramm retrieved 20 July 2018] (funding programme for female professors). In each of its two funding phases, two female professor positions were funded through this programme.
To optimise its services, the university's library, IT Service Centre and administrative IT were combined in 2012 to form the new organisational unit Communications, Information, Media Centre (KIM).
The Excellence Strategy of the German Federal and State Governments at the University of Konstanz: The University of Konstanz submitted three full cluster proposals to the DFG in February 2018. The funding decision for the Excellence Cluster funding line was announced on 27 September 2018: Two of the three submitted cluster initiatives will be funded: The "Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour" and "The Politics of Inequality: Perceptions, Participation and Policies". Since two Clusters of Excellence are the prerequisite for competing in the second funding line "Universities of Excellence", the University of Konstanz has submitted a full proposal in this funding line in December 2018. The German Council of Science and Humanities will announce the final decision in regard to the second funding line in July 2019.About the Excellence Strategy of the German Federal and State Governments, retrieved 25 January 2019
Campus Geography The university comprises approximately 90,000 square metres and lies on the Gießberg within the Mainauwald (Mainau forest). It belongs to Konstanz's Egg district, with the old village of Egg located a distance of 200 metres from campus on the far side of the Mainaustrasse (Mainau street). Two pedestrian and bike bridges connect the university grounds to the village and lakeside. Just like the village, the university's sports grounds are located on the lakeside of the street, north of Egg. The university's botanical garden is located to the north-west of the north parking lot and is open on weekdays. Before the independent village of Allmannsdorf was merged with the city of Konstanz on 1 January 1915, all of the land that the university now occupies belonged to this former community.
Architecture The university was designed as a customised space to facilitate social interaction between researchers, teachers and students, thereby departing from traditional university building layouts. Instead of a scattered array of individual buildings, architect Horst Linde drafted a compact university complex with interlinked buildings. The idea was to adapt the architecture to the hillside location, similar to a mountain village. Designer Wilhelm von Wolff's idea was that "people should be able to stroll through the university as if it were an old city centre with squares and alleyways that provide opportunities for casual encounters, perhaps with something mysterious here and there to rouse expectations". In order to shorten the routes to the centrally located Agora, the planners made it a requirement that the radius of the university area should not exceed 500 to 700 metres. Construction started in 1970 and lasted until 1983. Since then, the university has made several additions, all of which followed the original plans. In 2012, major university building sections were identified as historic monuments and provided official monument protection in recognition of their collective design and construction.
Percent for art The following artworks have been constructed as part of Percent for art projects on university grounds: The glass roof (1972) consisting of 227 coloured pyramids in the main entrance area of the university, designed by Otto Piene; the pipe sculptures (1969–1974) by Friedrich Gräsel in the Hockgrabental; the gate structures (1984) by Georg Karl Pfahler; the spool sculpture (1972) by Gottfried Bechtold; and the wooden head sculptures (1993) by Stephan Balkenhols.
Organization Faculties and Departments The 13 departments of the university are divided into three faculties:
Faculty of Sciences Biology Chemistry Computer and Information Science Mathematics and Statistics Physics Psychology
Faculty of Humanities History and Sociology Literary Studies Linguistics Philosophy
Faculty of Politics, Law and Economics Economics Law Politics and Public Administration
Central institutions The university comprises several central institutions:
The Communication, Information, Media Centre (KIM) is the university's primary service provider for IT and library services. KIM was created in 2014 by combining the library, IT Service Centre and administrative IT. It supports teaching, research and study at the University of Konstanz. The library of the University of Konstanz is the central service provider for all literature and information needs at the University of Konstanz. It provides access to approximately two million freely accessible and systematically organised print media and 1,600 work stations in an area of 25,000 square metres at the heart of the university. The library was conceptually redesigned, adapted to current requirements and thoroughly renovated between 2011 and 2017 as part of a pollutant remediation project. The library services are responsible for making printed and electronic media accessible and answer all questions that are related to their service spectrum. The KonSearch literature search engine provides access to over 400 million digital and printed media items. The IT services provide all the services required for the operation and further development of a university. In this way, both researchers and students can benefit from essential services such as the email system, the e-learning platform, campus management, IT security and central storage services. The International Office is responsible for advancing and sustaining international relations with other universities. It also provides support and guidance to visiting students and advises students interested in studying abroad.