TheUniversity of Tübingen, officially theEberhard Karl University of Tübingen (German:Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen;Latin:Universitas Eberhardina Carolina), is apublic research university located in the city ofTübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
The University of Tübingen was founded in 1477 by CountEberhard V (Eberhard im Bart, 1445–1496), later the firstDuke of Württemberg, a civic and ecclesiastic reformer who established the school after becoming absorbed in theRenaissance revival of learning during his travels to Italy. Its first rector wasJohannes Nauclerus.
Its present name was conferred on it in 1769 by DukeKarl Eugen who appended his first name to that of the founder. The university later became the principal university of the kingdom of Württemberg. Today, it is one of nine state universities funded by the Germanfederal state of Baden-Württemberg.
TheAlte Aula (Old Auditorium)
The University of Tübingen has a history of innovative thought, particularly in theology, in which the university and theTübinger Stift are famous to this day.Philipp Melanchthon, the prime mover in building the German school system and a chief figure in theProtestant Reformation, helped establish its direction. Among Tübingen's eminent students (and/or professors) have been the astronomerJohannes Kepler; the economistHorst Köhler (President of Germany); Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), poetFriedrich Hölderlin, and the philosophersFriedrich Schelling andGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. "The Tübingen Three" refers to Hölderlin, Hegel and Schelling, who were roommates at the Tübinger Stift. TheologianHelmut Thielicke revived postwar Tübingen when he took over a professorship at the reopened theological faculty in 1947, being made administrative head of the university and President of the Chancellor's Conference in 1951. Philosopher and theologianErnst Bloch is another prominent figure associated with Tübingen's postwar revival.
The university rose to the height of its prominence in the middle of the 19th century with the teachings of poet and civic leaderLudwig Uhland and the Protestant theologianFerdinand Christian Baur, whose circle, colleagues and students became known as the "Tübingen School", which pioneered the historical-critical analysis of biblical and early Christian texts, an approach generally referred to as "higher criticism". The University of Tübingen also was the first German university to establish a faculty ofnatural sciences, in 1863.DNA was discovered in 1868 at the University of Tübingen byFriedrich Miescher.Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, the first female Nobel Prize winner in medicine in Germany, also works at Tübingen. The faculty for economics and business was founded in 1817 as the "Staatswissenschaftliche Fakultät" and was the first of its kind in Germany.
Starting in the late 1990s at Tübingen, fundamental research on mRNA-based substances (e.g. for cancer treatment andvaccines) was conducted by groups led by H. G. Rammensee and G. Jung. This work contributed to the Ph.D. and later research ofIngmar Hoerr and by extension to theCOVID-19 vaccine programs byBioNTech,Moderna andCurevac.
The university played a leading role in efforts to legitimize the policies of the Third Reich as "scientific". Even before the victory of the Nazi Party in thegeneral election in March 1933, there were hardly any Jewish faculty and a few Jewish students.[5]Antisemitism andnational-conservative tendencies had already been widespread at the university among professors and students beforeNazi-era.[6]
The University of Tübingen was the German university that dismissed the fewest Jewish employees after the introduction of the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" in 1933. This was not because the university had opposed Nazi orders, but because the lack of Jewish scholars, or students at the university.[6]
PhysicistHans Bethe was dismissed on 20 April 1933 because of "non-Aryan" origin. Religion professorTraugott Konstantin Oesterreich and the mathematicianErich Kamke were forced to take early retirement, probably in both cases the "non-Aryan" origin of their wives.[5] At least 1,158 people were sterilized at the University Hospital.[7]
There was no significant resistance to National Socialism at the University of Tübingen.[6]
In 1967,Jürgen Moltmann (b. 1926), one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the 20th century, was appointed Professor of Systematic Theology in the Faculty of Protestant Theology. Drafted in 1944 by Nazi Germany, he was an Allied prisoner of war 1945–1948. He was influenced by his Tübingen colleague and friend the Marxist philosopherErnst Bloch.
In 1970, the university was restructured into a series offaculties as independent departments of study and research after the manner of French universities.
Baden-Württemberg, governed by the CDU/FDP, was one of the first federal states to introduce tuition fees. These were introduced in 2007 and also levied in Tübingen. Tuition fees were abolished in 2012. The university made the headlines in November 2009 when a group of left-leaning students occupied one of the main lecture halls, the Kupferbau, for several days to protest tuition fees. They demanded free education for everyone.
Carl Eugen gave the University the recent name. In addition to a university reform in 1769 that benefited the educated elite, he also contributed to the consolidation of his finances by trafficking young men who had to fight abroad as mercenaries.
Since the 1970s, Tübingen students and academia has been discussing a possible renaming of the Eberhard Karls University. This debate has been fueled primarily bymodern students who want to overcome the university from its tradition of feudal patronage.[10]
In August 1977, students spontaneously changed the name of the university to "Ernst Bloch University" in memory of the renowned Tübingen philosopherErnst Bloch, adding a new sign to the Neue Aula, the traditional university's main building.[11][12]
In 2022, the student council and theJuso university group, among others, submitted a motion to delete the names. The Senate commissioned a study by historians to determine how the namesakes should be evaluated.
Count Eberhard was characterized by religiousanti-Judaism, which led to the "creeping" expulsion of Jews from Württemberg. A testamentary provision of him for their expulsion had "far-reaching significance for Württemberg's politics, which had been characterized by fierce anti-Semitism since the end of the 15th century," according to study by historians. Karl Eugen was an absolutist ruler "who ruthlessly exploited his country and his subjects," according to the historic investigation. He sold his country's young men as soldiers to foreign warlords to boost his state coffers.[13] The report considered also the negative aspects of both personalities to be an expression of attitudes typical of the time.[14] There are also different opinions within the Commission on the question of whether to keep or change the name, said the head of the commission.[15]
The students pointed out that both potentates were unsuitable as namesakes of a university in the 21st century due to personal and political misconduct.[13] Despite the report by the university's own historians, only 15 members of the university's senate voted in favor of the renaming motion. 16 voted against, and two members abstained. A two-thirds majority would have been required for a renaming.[13]
The University of Tübingen undertakes a broad range of research projects in various fields. Among the more prominent ones in the natural sciences are theHertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, which focuses on general, cognitive and cellularneurology as well asneurodegeneration, and theCentre for Interdisciplinary Clinical Research, which deals primarily with cell biology in diagnostics and therapy of organ system diseases. In the liberal arts, the University of Tübingen is noteworthy for having the only faculty of rhetoric in Germany – the department was founded byWalter Jens, an important intellectual and literary critic. The university also boasts continued pre-eminence in its centuries-old traditions of research in the fields ofphilosophy,theology andphilology. Since at least the nineteenth century, Tübingen has been the home of world-class research inprehistoric studies and the study of antiquity, including the study of theancient Near East; a particular focus of the research in these areas at the University of Tübingen has beenAnatolia, e.g., through the continued excavations of the university atTroy. The University of Tübingen is also host to a number ofCollaborative Research Centres, producing fundamental interdisciplinary research.
The Coin Collection of the Institute of Classical Archaeology at the University of Tübingen [Münzsammlung des Instituts für Klassische Archäologie der Universität Tübingen] is one of the largest coin collections in Germany. The current Director is Prof DrStefan Krmnicek.[16]
The University of Tübingen is not acampus university, but is spread throughout the town: Tübingen is one of five classical "university towns" in Germany. The other four areMarburg,Göttingen,Freiburg andHeidelberg.[17] In Tübingen there are four areas with a major concentration of university institutions.
The university uses a number of buildings in theold town of Tübingen, some of which date back to the foundation of the university. Today, these are mainly used by smaller humanities departments, as is the adjacentmedievalcastle,Schloss Hohentübingen.
Northeast of the old town, theWilhelmstraße area surrounding the street of the same name is home to larger humanities departments as well as the university's administration. The main university library and mainrefectory are also in this area.
A new campus for the sciences was built in the 1970s atMorgenstelle, a hill north of the historic centre of Tübingen. Facilities include a large refectory.Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, part of theKlinikum
The university'steaching hospitals are located between the Wilhelmstraße area and the Morgenstelle campus in an area collectively known as theKlinikum. The 17 hospitals in Tübingen affiliated with the university's faculty of medicine have 1,500 patient beds, and cater to 66,000 in-patients and 200,000 out-patients on an annual basis.[18]
Accommodation provided by the TübingenStudentenwerk is in several locations throughout the town. The largest of the elevenhalls of residence are in the city's northern neighbourhood ofWaldhäuser Ost (1,700 rooms) and in the city's southeasternmost neighbourhood,Französisches Viertel (500 rooms).[19]
Wild horse figurineUrpferd from the Vogelherdhöhle (40,000 years), UNESCO World Heritage
In 2006, theMuseum of the University of Tübingen (MUT) was founded to professionalize the 60 sometimes very old and singular teaching, show and research collections of the university from all faculties in terms of collection, curatorial and organizational aspects. One aim was in interdisciplinary exhibitions present the content to the general public as well as researched in the field of science itself.
MUT It is based at Hohentübingen Castle, which houses the castle laboratory (Schlosslabor) and the Ancient Cultures Collections. Among the highlights of the palace's Ancient Cultures collection are the mammoth, the wild horse, the Tübingen Armored Walker, and an Egyptian burial chamber (UNESCO World Heritage Site: Ice Age Art). TheBotanical Garden, thePaleontological Collection and thePsychological Collection are particularly popular with the public.[20]
MUT is offering a own german-speaking profile program "Museum & Collections" within the master programs of called of nine humanities and cultural studies subjects.[21]
The MUT – and thus the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen – is the only university institution in the world to house artefacts with world heritage status, such as the oldest surviving figurative works of art and musical instruments of humanity, mammoth ivory figures and fragments of bone flutes. These come from the Vogelherdhöhle (Swabian Jura), which has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage "Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura" since 2017.
Entrance to the Historical Reading Hall of the University Library of Tübingen
TheUniversity Library of Tübingen is not just available to those affiliated with the university, but also to the general public. The library provides more than three million individual volumes and more than 7,600 journals. Apart from the main library, more than 80 departmental libraries containing an additional three million volumes are also associated with the university.
The main lending library is located on Wilhelmstraße and consists of several different parts which are connected through corridors and walkways:
The Bonatzbau, the library's oldest building, was built in 1912 and currently houses the historical reading room (Historischer Lesesaal), the universityarchive, along with a number ofmanuscript collections.
The library's main building, constructed in 1963, contains the information desk and research stations to access electronic catalogues and databases.
Interior of the Historical Reading HallThe Ammerbau is the most recent addition to the library complex. Built in 2002, it offers users direct access to over 300,000 volumes and latest issues of newspapers, magazines and journals. It also contains numerous work places and separate individual rooms for group work.
The university is governed by three separate bodies sharing different functions and duties. However, some persons serve in more than one body.
TheRectorate is the executive component of the university's governing body. The currentrector, ProfessorKarla Pollmann, is supported by four deputies consisting of threeprorectors and oneprovost. All are also permanent members of the university senate.[23][24]
TheSenate forms the legislative section of governance. Apart from the members of the rectorate, it includes theequal opportunities commissioner, the deans and 20 elected members representing the professors, lecturers, students and non-academic staff. Two advisors represent the university'steaching hospitals.[25]
TheUniversity Council (Hochschulrat orUniversitätsrat) has 13 members, including its president and vice-president as well as five further internal and six external members.[26]
As of the 2024 edition of theQS World University Rankings, the University of Tübingen ranks 213th globally, which places it at 11th position nationally within Germany.[27] The university's rank appears significantly higher in the 2024Times Higher Education World University Rankings, standing at an 95th position globally and 8th nationally.[28] TheAcademic Ranking of World Universities, also known as the Shanghai Ranking, for the year 2023 places the University of Tübingen in the 151–200 bracket globally, and within the 6–9 bracket in the national ranking.[29]
Since 2012, the University of Tübingen has been regarded as one of elevenGerman Excellence Universities that have been successful in the competition of theGerman Universities Excellence Initiative.[30] The award brings additional research funds for five years.[31] With three successful research Clusters of Excellence approved by the German Universities Excellence Initiative in 2018, Tübingen is one of the three universities with the highest research output in Germany and leading among universities in South Germany.[32][33]
According to the funding report of theGerman Research Foundation (DFG) 2018, which breaks down the grants awarded to German universities from 2014 to 2016, the University of Tübingen was ranked 8th overall, 4th inhumanities andsocial sciences, and 6th inlife sciences includingmedicine.[34] This ranking is based on a selection of best research projects nationwide and thus regarded as an indicator of the quality of research.
Traditionally, Tübingen has been particularly strong in the fields ofhumanities, especially intheology andreligious studies,medicine, andlaw. The Tübingen Law School was ranked second nationwide by theWirtschaftswoche University Ranking.[36] Also according to international rankings, Tübingen regularly ranks among the top ten law schools in Germany.[37]
Since 2018, the university has been part of a wider artificial intelligence research initiative named Cyber Valley.[38] Cyber Valley has seen investments frommultinational companies poured into establishing research centers, research groups, and professorships in the city. The investing organisations and corporations includeGoogle,Amazon,BMW,IAV,Daimler,Porsche, andBosch. The Cyber Valley initiative has attracted criticism from student groups andactivist groups alike, with many protest actions, includingbuilding occupations anddemonstrations, having taken place decrying both thecommercialisation of university research and the involvement of the university with organisations that are engaged inmilitary research.[39]
The university's students make up roughly a third of the total population of Tübingen and the town's culture can seem to be largely dominated by them. As a result there is a slump of activity during university holidays, particularly over the summer when a large number of otherwise regular events are not happening.
Around 30Studentenverbindungen, the German type offraternities, are associated with the university. While famous for their parties, public academic lectures and the yearly "Stocherkahn-Rennen" punting-boat race on the Neckar river, some of them are the subject of ongoing controversy surrounding allegedrightwing policial views, leading to strong criticism fromleftist groups.[40] The university itself takes a neutral stance on this issue. However, all of Tübingen's fraternities distance themselves from the fraternities of theDeutsche Burschenschaft, which have been widely criticized as adhering to far-right principles.
Fraternity house on theÖsterberg
Also closely linked to the university are a number of student societies representing mainly the arts andpolitical parties. Most notable are a number ofchoirs as well as studenttheatre groups affiliated with the faculty of Modern Languages, some of which perform in foreign languages.Radio Uniwelle Tübingen is theuniversity's radio station, airing seven hours of programmes a week produced by students under the supervision of staff employed by the university.[41]
The university also offersgym andsports classes calledHochschulsport.[42] Since Tübingen has a department ofsports science with a broad range of facilities, students of other subjects have the possibility to participate in various kinds of sports courses in teams or as individuals. Furthermore, even exotic sports, such asparachuting ormartial arts, are offered. Students may attend courses either for free or at reduced rates. The sports department is located close to theWilhelmstraße area of university buildings and is served by a number of frequent bus routes.
Stocherkähne during the traditional annual race
Unlike in some major cities, student discounts are not widely available in Tübingen.Cinemas and thetown council'spublic library in particular do not offer discounts for students, and there are only a handful of restaurants which have reducedlunch deals. However, students may benefit from theSemesterticket, a heavily discountedpublic transport season pass offering six months of unlimited travel on trains and buses in thenaldoVerkehrsverbundtransport association for approximately €62.50.[43] TheLandestheater Tübingen theatre and all public swimming pools also have discounts for students.
Nightlife in Tübingen is centered on the numerouspubs in the old town along with a number ofclubs, most of which dedicate themselves to non-mainstream music. During the semester, theStudentenwerk-ownedClubhaus at the centre of the Wilhelmstraße university area hosts the weeklyClubhausfest on Thursday nights. This popular, free-entry club night is organized and promoted by student societies andFachschaft student representative bodies and all proceeds go towards their activities in support of students.
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