The University of Freiburg's Internationalisation Strategy 2014-2018

Our goal: Trinational – European – Global. With the diversity of our teaching and research, we are determined to set an example for positive globalisation. Regarding our strategic development, we are resolutely putting our faith in internationalisation in the region, Europe and the world.

As a leading research university, we take our global responsibility very seriously and want to grasp the opportunities to cooperate internationally with partners and students whilst searching for solutions to global challenges through research. Our guiding principle and focus are the sustainable development goals (SDGs) with their urgent reflection on inequality, social justice, global challenges and sustainability practices.

The University of Freiburg regards interculturality and diversity as driving forces and important features of teaching and research as well as organisational development within the university. The enormous diversity of researchers, staff and students at our university creates an ideal basis for excellent, interdisciplinary, cutting-edge research and teaching. Consequently, the university would like to include a comprehensive gender and diversity perspective in internationalisation, governance, personnel policy, research, teaching, and infrastructure.

The University of Freiburg is already excellently connected. It can boast top ratings for international co-authorships in academic publications, and with more than 31 percent of international Master’s students and 36.4 percent of international doctoral candidates (DAAD profile data 2018) it is in the vanguard of German universities. These linkages are set to be strategically reinforced and systematically expanded in the coming years.

In this context, we pursue a multi-layer principle: the first layer is composed of our trinational partners in the region with Eucor – The European Campus; the second layer includes our European partners, Amsterdam, Poznan, Vienna and Thessaloniki (EPICUR) together with our partners in the League of European Research Universities (LERU), and the third layer comprises our global partners in Adelaide, Nagoya, Nanjing, at PennState and, in the future, in Accra.

Read the University of Freiburg’s entire Internationalisation Strategy 2014-2018 [in German].