University of Bayreuth


The University of Bayreuth is a public research university situated in Bayreuth, Germany. It was founded in 1975 as a campus university focusing on international collaboration and interdisciplinarity. It is broadly organized into seven undergraduate and graduate faculties, with each faculty defining its own admission standards and academic programs in near autonomy.
The university offers several interdisciplinary courses such as Philosophy & Economics, History & Economics, Global Change Ecology, Theatre and Media studies, and Health Economics.
In 2017 the university was ranked 29 in the Times Higher Education world university ranking for universities founded less than 50 years ago.
It is a member of the Elite Network of Bavaria, an educational policy concept of Bavaria for the promotion of gifted pupils and students in the higher education sector.

Organization

Faculties

The University of Bayreuth is divided into seven faculties:
The first chancellor was Wolf-Peter Hentschel from 1973 to Oktober 1999, who was already head of the executive office since 1 January 1972. From November 1999 to 2010 Ekkehard Beck was and since 2011 Markus Zanner is chancellor of the University of Bayreuth.

Facilities

The University library is divided into the following locations:
  1. Central Library with integrated Departmental Library of the Social Sciences
  2. Departmental Library of Law and Economics
  3. Departmental Library of Biology/Chemistry
  4. Departmental Library of Mathematics/Physics/Informatics/Engineering Sciences
  5. Departmental Library of Earth Science
  6. Departmental Library of Research Institute of Music Theatre, Castle of Thurnau
  7. Additional stack rooms at Geschwister-Scholl-Platz

    Study Programmes

The University has a capacity for approximately 10000 students, in winter term 2011/12 the number of enrolled peaked to approximately 11400 students due to the dual Abitur cohorts. Many study programmes use interdisciplinary approaches, i.e. "Philosophy & Economics", “History & Economics”, "International Economy and Development", "Health Economics", "Sports Economics", "Polymer- and Colloidal Chemistry", "Geoecology", "Global Change Ecology" or "Applied Informatics".

Research

Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, German Federal Minister of Defence, was awarded a summa cum laude doctorate by the Faculty of Law, Business Administration and Economics in 2007. After extensive plagiarism in zu Guttenberg's dissertation was revealed in February 2011, German media also criticised the University of Bayreuth. A University spokesman has denied allegations of bribery and political corruption.
The University cancelled the doctorate and Guttenberg was forced to resign.

Notable faculty