There are many good reasons for the popularity of the Friedrich Schiller University, which celebrated its 450th anniversary in 2008: its outstanding equipment, great history and the close relationship to practical experience fostered by the professors and scientific staff.

As one of the most important criteria, a lot of people see the research activities of the university as its global success. Its global achievements hit the headlines regularly advancing the University of Jena as an eligible partner for scientific projects as well as business partners.

Priority sectors of top research are: 

• Optics, Photonics, and photonic technologies (Ernst-Abbe-Centre for Photonics)
• Innovative materials and technologies
• Dynamics of complex biological systems
• The Enlightenment lab (Cultural region Weimar-Jena 1800)
• Human behavior in social and economic change

In addition, there is one excellence graduate school at the Friedrich Schiller University, four current German Research Community special research areas and four shareholdings in German Research Community special research areas.

Young scientists are given subsequent support in their work. The university-run Service Centre for Research and Transfer gives advice for those applying for development funds or setting up businesses. A majority of institutes maintain direct contacts to enterprises realizing projects in cooperation with them. In doing so, a great deal of students gain practical experience and may find their future employers.

This form of public private partnership has had a longstanding tradition in Jena. It is the honourable duty of all involved partners from the fields of research, industry and politics to update these networks by constantly adding new business partners and sponsors.

The Friedrich-Schiller-university as a member of the Coimbra Group, a consortium of European universities rich in tradition, such as Bologna, Oxford, Cambridge or Heidelberg, has been maintaining top-level academic cooperation since 1992.

The university is dedicated nowadays to the spirit of its famous students and lecturers who have shaped it. Names like Friedrich Schiller, the brothers Schlegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Ernst Haeckel and Gottlieb Frege were those who once made Jena the most famous place to go to university in Germany.

Contact:

Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena
Postal address: 07737 Jena
Visitors address: Fürstengraben 1, 07743 Jena
Phone: +49 (0) 03641 - 93 00