Free University of Berlin

History

It was founded in 1948 by students and staff who were relegated because of their political views from Humboldt University of Berlin, formerly the traditional Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität of Berlin, and at that time controlled by the authorities in the Soviet sector. In 1968, it was the center of the left-wing German student movement in parallel to that in Paris, London, and Berkeley. Activists of that time included the SDS and Rudi Dutschke. By the 1980s, it had become the largest German university with 66,000 students. With the restructuring of the Humboldt University after the German reunification, the Freie Universität Berlin was downsized to about 38,000 students in the 1990s.

Freie Universität Berlin is a leading research institution. It is one of nine German universities that met with success in all three funding lines in the federal and state Excellence Initiative, thereby receiving additional funding for its institutional future development strategy. Freie Universität can thus take its place as an “International Network university” in the global competition among universities. Its future development strategy is focused around three strategic centers: for cluster development, for international exchange, and for graduate studies. Development and assessment of research projects takes place within three major focus areas – area studies, humanities, and life sciences. Freie Universität has various offices abroad, e.g., in New York, Beijing, and Moscow, that provide a platform for international cooperation. The university’s performance in the Excellence Initiative has provided funding for several new graduate schools and transdisciplinary research clusters.

The Times Higher Education Supplement world rankings in Arts and Humanities of 2008 place the FU Berlin 3rd best in Europe, and 24th in the world.

Departments

1. The university has 12 departments, three interdisciplinary central institutes and other central service institutions:
2. Biology, Chemistry, Pharmacy
3. Business and Economics
4. Earth Sciences
5. History and Cultural Studies
6. Law
7. Mathematics and Computer Science
8. Medicine (Charité - University Medicine Berlin)
9. Pedagogy and Psychology
10. Philosophy and Humanities