What tempts people to evade taxes, even though they already have a lot of money?

How can a football stadium be evacuated quickly enough in an emergency?

How do cultures and societies change in the context of rapidly progressing globalization and increasingly complex networks?

How do social inequalities and unequal educational opportunities arise and multiply in our society – in formal and informal education?

These are just a few questions that our scholars and scientists ask themselves every day and to which their research seeks answers.

Whether in research on ageing, cancer cells or linguistics: excellent recruitments, top-class prizes and the successful acquisition of third-party funding demonstrate the quality and attractiveness of the University as a research location across all Faculties.

The University offers its employees the creative freedom and flexibility to carry out their tasks. Agreements on good employment conditions offer an attractive framework.

We established the GATEWAY incubator in 2015 to support students and employees aiming at setting up a business of their own. In 2019 GATEWAY was awarded the title of GATEWAY Excellence Start up Center and has since been funded by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Innovation, Digitalization and Energyof the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. The COPT Center for Organic Electronics is a high-tech platform supporting companies, especially medium-sized companies. Currently, digital innovation is an important topic: In 2016, the UoC successfully obtained funding to set up the “Digital Hub Cologne” together with the City of Cologne and the Cologne Chamber of Industry and Commerce to support digital innovation in medium-sized companies.

Our topical and wide-ranging internal and external training programme empowers our faculty and staff to continue their future-oriented work and research in this dynamic environment.

Internationality of studies, teaching, research and administration is an integral part of the University’s identity. Openness to the world and interculturality are essential for success in science and education. The University of Cologne works to strategically expand its already well-established global network of over 500 international partnerships and research cooperations, and at the same time to promote internationalization on campus – by recruiting excellent guest researchers or offering international degree programmes. This task concerns all areas of campus life and requires interdisciplinary cooperation and collaboration in everyday life at the University of Cologne.

In 2014, we received the “Total E-Quality Award” for outstanding gender equality work for the third time. We were also honoured for our gender equality concept within the German Professorinnenprogramm, a programme for the recruitment of more women professors. Promoting equal opportunities is central to the University of Cologne’s development strategy. In order to achieve this goal on all levels, the University headship also develops individually tailored strategies with each of its six Faculties. Last but not least, we have introduced a large number of structures and measures for inclusion, educational justice and anti-discrimination.