Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is a public research university in Karlsruhe, Germany. The institute is a national research center of the Helmholtz Association.
KIT was created in 2009 when the University of Karlsruhe, founded in 1825 as a public research university and also known as the "Fridericiana", merged with the Karlsruhe Research Center, which had originally been established in 1956 as a national nuclear research center (or KfK). KIT is thus the first and only institution in Germany to overcome the division of the German scientific and research landscape into academic and non-academic institutions in the form of a merger of two different types of institutions.
KIT is a member of the TU9, an incorporated society of the largest and most notable German institutes of technology. As part of the German Universities Excellence Initiative KIT was one of three universities which were awarded excellence status in 2006. In the following "German Excellence Strategy" KIT was awarded as one of eleven "Excellence Universities" in 2019. KIT is among the leading technical universities in Germany and Europe. According to the CWTS Leiden Ranking, KIT is the German university with the strongest research in engineering and natural sciences.
In the university part of today's KIT, science-based mechanical engineering was founded in the mid-19th century under the direction of Ferdinand Redtenbacher, which influenced the foundation of other technical universities, such as ETH Zurich in 1855. The university is also among the pioneers of computer science research in Germany. It established the first German faculty for computer science in 1972. On 2 August 1984, the university received the first-ever German e-mail. In the 1990s, all .de domains were registered and managed at the University of Karlsruhe. The same was true for Chinese .cn domains.
KIT alumni and faculty include six Nobel Prize laureates and nine Leibniz Prize winners. The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology is well known for many inventors and entrepreneurs who studied or taught there, including Heinrich Hertz, Karl Friedrich Benz and the founders of SAP SE.
History
The University of Karlsruhe was founded as a polytechnical school on 7 October 1825. It was modelled on the in Paris. In 1865, Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden raised the school to the status of a , an institution of higher education. Since 1902 the university has also been known as the Fridericiana in his honour. In 1885, it was declared a , or institute of technology, and in 1967, it became an , a full university, which gave it the right to award regular doctorate degrees. It had hitherto been allowed to award doctorates only in engineering, identified as , a right bestowed on all technical institutes in 1899.
The University of Karlsruhe is one of the leading German institutions in computer science. A central computer laboratory was founded in 1966. The department of informatics was established three years later, along with the first regular course in informatics. On 2 August 1984, the university received Germany's first email. The (Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research) was founded at the university in 1985.
The university also cooperated extensively with the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (Karlsruhe Research Centre), and this relationship was formalised on 6 April 2006 when Professor Horst Hippler and Dr. Dieter Ertmann from the University of Karlsruhe, and Professor Manfred Popp and Assistant Jur. Sigurd Lettow from Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe signed a contract for the foundation of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). The name was inspired by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the leading technical university in the United States. In February 2008, the merger of the university and the research centre to form KIT was agreed by the state of Baden-Württemberg and Germany's federal government. The necessary state law was passed on 8 July 2009. KIT was formally established on 1 October 2009.
The main reason for establishing KIT was to strengthen Karlsruhe's position in the German Universities Excellence Initiative, which offered elite universities grants of up to 50 million euros per annum. This aim was not achieved. While the University of Karlsruhe was chosen for the initiative in 2006/2007, KIT failed to secure a place in 2012. It did, however, attract funds from other sources. In 2008, Hans-Werner Hector, co-founder of SAP, raised 200 million euros to support researchers at the institute. (Hector is the only founder of SAP who did not graduate from the University of Karlsruhe; he was given an honorary doctorate for his support of intellectually gifted children in 2003.)
Campus
Campus Nord
The (Campus North), the former , was founded in 1956 as (Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Centre). Initial activities focused on Forschungsreaktor 2 (FR2), the first nuclear reactor built by Germany. With the decline of nuclear energy activities in Germany, Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe directed its work increasingly towards alternative areas of basic and applied sciences. This change is reflected in the change of name from to with the subheading (technology and environment) added in 1995. This subheading was replaced by (in the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers) in 2002.
Campus Nord is the site of the main German national nuclear engineering research centre and the Institute for Transuranium Elements. Also at the site is a nanotechnology research centre and the neutrino experiment KATRIN.
Campus Nord also hosts a 200-metre-tall guyed mast for meteorological measurements.
Organization and administration
Faculties
The university has eleven faculties:
Mathematics
Physics
Chemistry and Biology
Humanities and Social sciences
Architecture
Civil engineering, Geology, and Ecological Sciences
Mechanical Engineering
Chemical and Process Engineering
Electrical engineering and Information Technology
Computer Science
Economics and Management
Academic profile
Education
The university offers a great range of education options with such possibilities as cross studies and work-study programs. A studium generale (general studies) program was established in 1949, allowing students to attend lectures not directly pertaining their study field.
In the first semesters of a course, education tends to be theoretically oriented at KIT, with a high concentration on mathematics for engineering and natural science courses. It is possible to choose between practical and theoretical topics in later semesters.
Since the winter semester of 2008/2009, KIT has completed the transition from Diplom degrees to bachelor's degrees and master's degrees. Students already enrolled for a Diplom degree when the transition began were allowed to finish their studies, but new students are allowed to apply only for a bachelor's or master's degree.
Admission policies differ among the departments. While students are chosen by the quality of their school degree and their extracurricular activities for courses such as industrial engineering and management (27% of admissions in 2008), other departments do not preselect for their courses, including physics, informatics, and meteorology. All courses require a minimum number of passed exams, called or orientation assessments, in the first three semesters before students are allowed to complete their course. There is a substantial drop-out rate in some engineering courses due to the immense study required to meet the prerequisites.
The Zentrum für Angewandte Kulturwissenschaft und Studium Generale (Centre for Applied Culture and General Studies) was founded in 1989 as a central institution to support students engaged in interdisciplinary study. Nowadays, it offers specialised qualifications in the fields of "Leadership and Entrepreneurship", "Media – Culture – Communication", "Internationalisation and Intercultural Decision-making and Responsibility", "Diversity Management", and "European Integration and Identity Studies", as well as the classical studium generale. There is also the possibility of concomitant study in applied culture science.
Research
In 1979, the Interfakultatives Institut für Anwendungen der Informatik (Interfaculty Institute for Informatics Applications) was founded. It brings together research in physics, mathematics, and engineering based on computer science. Its mathematical pendant is the Institut für Wissenschaftliches Rechnen und Mathematische Modellbildung (Institute for Scientific Calculations and Mathematical Modelling). Its aim is to enhance the exchange between mathematics and engineering in the fields of scientific calculations.
The Interfakultatives Institut für Entrepreneurship (Interfaculty Institute for Entrepreneurship) was established with SAP funding. Its teaching professors were entrepreneurs on their own. Before being shut down in 2010, a former professor of this faculty was Götz Werner, founder of dm-drogerie markt.
In 2001, the Centre for Functional Nanostructures (CFN) was established. It merges the fields within material sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, and physics which are related to nanotechnology. CFN is one of the three Exzellenzzentren (English: Excellence Institutions) of the University of Karlsruhe. Another interdisciplinary institution is the Centre for Disaster Management and Risk Reduction Technology (CEDIM).
The Karlsruhe School of Optics and Photonics (KSOP) was established in 2006 as a publicly funded project by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft under the German Universities Excellence Initiative. KSOP was the first graduate school at the University of Karlsruhe and covers the fields of photonic materials and devices, advanced spectroscopy, biomedical photonics, optical systems and solar energy. It is supported by several of the university's institutes and professors. It is also a partner in the EUROPHOTONICS consortium, which provides scholarship for master's and PhD degrees under the European Commission's prestigious Erasmus Mundus cooperation and mobility program.
KIT operates several TCCON stations as part of an international collaborative effort to measure greenhouse gases globally. One station is near the campus.
KIT is partner of the science project for urban and autonomous freight logistics, efeuCampus in Bruchsal, which is funded by the state of Baden-Württemberg and the European Union. At the Institute for Conveying Technology and Logistics Systems (IFL), conveyor systems for intralogistics are being developed for the research project, which are used for mobile robotics and human-machine interaction. The project develops localization and navigation algorithms for an urban environment, which enable vehicles to navigate independently on the basis of laser and video data.
Rankings and reputation
According to the QS World University Rankings for 2024, KIT was ranked 119th globally and 6th in Germany. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2024 listed KIT at a global position of 140, and 14th nationally within Germany. Furthermore, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) for 2023 placed KIT in the 301–400 range worldwide, and between 20th and 24th in the country.
In the 2023 QS Subject Ranking, KIT ranks first in Germany in chemical engineering. In the 2023 THE Subject Ranking, KIT ranks within the global 100 in engineering, computer science, and the physical sciences. In the 2023 ARWU Subject Ranking, KIT ranks first in Germany in metallurgical engineering, atmospheric science, and energy science, while sharing the first place in materials science and water resources.
In the Nature Index (1 May 2022 – 30 April 2023), which measures the scientific strength of different institutions on the basis of publications in 82 high-quality scientific journals, the KIT ranks second in the field of physical sciences among the universities in Germany, 7th in Europe, and 63rd worldwide. TU Munich ranks first in Germany, ranks three to five are followed by LMU Munich, University of Hamburg, and University of Mainz.
According to a 2015 survey, KIT has produced the largest number of top managers among German universities, with 24 board members of the 100 largest German companies. The other places are followed by the University of Cologne (17), the RWTH Aachen (17), the University of Mannheim (13) and the LMU Munich (13). In the ranking of the German magazine Wirtschaftswoche, in which decision-makers of companies are asked about their preferences, KIT regularly occupies a position among the top ten in the subjects electrical engineering, computer science, mechanical engineering, and industrial engineering in Germany. In the QS Graduate Employability Rankings 2022, which follow a similar approach as the Wirtschaftswoche ranking on a global level, KIT is ranked 46th worldwide. Thus, KIT takes first place in Germany and 10th place in Europe.
In the CWTS Leiden Ranking of the year 2023, which is based exclusively on bibliometrics to measure the research output of universities, KIT is ranked 56th worldwide in the physical sciences and engineering according to the "Impact" indicator and 49th worldwide according to the "Collaboration" indicator. In Germany, KIT is ranked first ahead of RWTH Aachen University and TU Munich. Europe-wide, KIT is ranked 4th and 8th respectively.
In the 2023 Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities released by the National Taiwan University, KIT is ranked 4th in the fields of natural sciences and engineering in Germany.
In the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities for the year 2023, KIT ranks fifth among 483 listed universities and scientific institutions in Germany. In the ranking U-Multirank funded by the European Union, KIT is ranked 5th out of 106 universities examined in Germany across all categories in 2022. In the University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP) 2017/2018, KIT is ranked first in Germany in the subjects "Chemical Sciences" (world rank: 49), "Technology" (world rank: 54), "Nanoscience & Nanomaterials" (world rank: 58), "Materials Engineering" (world rank: 48), Chemical Engineering (ranked 43), Mechanical Engineering (ranked 58), Civil Engineering (ranked 76), Environmental Engineering (ranked 98), Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences (ranked 15) and Transportation Science & Technology (ranked 123) Further top rankings are also achieved in "Physical Sciences" (rank Germany: 3; world rank: 55); "Mathematical Sciences" (rank Germany: 2; world rank: 66); "Engineering" (rank Germany: 3 (after rank 1 last year); world rank 107); "Electrical & Electronics Engineering" (rank Germany: 2; world rank: 70), "Information & Computing Sciences" (rank Germany: 2; world rank: 63), "Earth Sciences" (rank Germany: 2; world rank: 54), "Geology" (rank Germany: 5; world rank: 111), "Metallurgy Engineering" (rank Germany: 2; world rank: 34) and "Architecture" (rank Germany: 2; world rank: 71).
KIT is a member of the TU9 German Institutes of Technology e.V. As part of the German Universities Excellence Initiative KIT was awarded an excellence status in 2006 and 2019. In the 2011 performance-ranking of scientific papers, Karlsruhe ranked first in Germany and among the top 10 universities in Europe in engineering and natural sciences. In 2005, more than 20% of its students come from other nations and 0.6% of its students receive grants from the German Studienstiftung (German National Academic Foundation).
Computer facilities
The Steinbuch Centre for Computing (SCC), named after Karl Steinbuch, was formed in 2008 when the main computer facilities of the University of Karlsruhe merged with those at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe. It is responsible for the university's IP connectivity and provides central services (Mail, Web, campus management) for students and employees. It supplies students with 10 fully equipped computer rooms, one professional print office and a wireless network providing access to the whole campus area. Some departments, like computer science, physics, and mathematics, run their own computer facilities as well.
The SCC operates some of the fastest computers in Germany:
HP XC3000 (334 nodes with 8 cores each, 27.04 TFLOPS)
HP XC4000 (750 nodes with 4 cores each, 15.77 TFLOPS)
a cluster purchased by a corporation of institutes representing different disciplines (200 nodes with 8 cores each, 17.57 TFLOPS)
the two vector parallel calculators NEC SX-8R and NEC SX-9
On 2 August 1984, Michael Rotert, a research fellow at University of Karlsruhe, received the first email ever sent to Germany, at his address rotert%germany@csnet-relay.csnet.
GridKa runs the Rocks Cluster Distribution Linux distribution for supercomputers.
Libraries
The KIT Library with its two branches on Campus South and Campus North provides literature for research and study for about 25,000 students and 8000 scientists with a widespread, interdisciplinary book stock of over 2 million volumes, reports and 28,000 periodicals in print and electronic form. The emphasis of the collection lies in natural and engineering sciences.
KIT Library South
The 24-hour library at Campus South was extended in 2006. It offers many workplaces and an area for relaxing, and is now open around the clock. The combination of a special book security system and an automated issue desk makes it possible to use the 1000 workplaces anytime, day or night. Current and contemporary literature is freely accessible in four specialised reading rooms, each providing cross-linked, modern and well-equipped study and work stations as well as printers, scanners and copy machines.
KIT Library North
The research library at Campus North provides a large specialised book stock (especially reports and primary reports) on energy and nuclear energy. All literature is freely accessible to the user. Thirty modern workplaces, as well as printers, scanners, copy machines and cubicles for individual work are available.
Further libraries at KIT
Additional literature is located in two specialised reading rooms for chemistry and physics, as well as in the Library of the University of Applied Sciences at the Campus at Moltkestrasse, which is administered by the KIT Library. The faculty of physics, the faculty of mathematics, the faculty of computer science, the faculty of architecture and the faculty of economics and management have their own libraries to supply students and researchers with topic-related literature.
Notable people
Professors
Karl Ferdinand Braun (1850–1918), who developed the cathode ray tube in 1897, which is widely used in televisions; in 1909 he received the Nobel Prize for the invention
Wolfgang Gaede (1878–1945), who founded vacuum technology
Franz Grashof (1826–1893), who significantly contributed to the understanding of free convection; the Grashof Number was named after him
Fritz Haber (1868–1934), who developed the high-pressure synthesis of ammonia in 1909 and won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918
Heinrich Hertz (1857–1894) discovered electromagnetic waves in 1887, which are the basis for radio transmission, and after whom the SI unit of frequency, hertz is named
Karl Heun (1859–1929), who is known for his work on numerical integration and solutions to differential equations. He discovered the Heun method.
Otto Lehmann (1855–1922), the founder of liquid crystal research
Wilhelm Nusselt (1882–1957), the co-founder of technical thermodynamics
Ferdinand Redtenbacher (1809–1863), founder of science-based mechanical engineering in Germany
Roland Scholl (1865–1945), discovered coronene and contributed significantly to the field of organic chemistry in general
Hermann Staudinger (1881–1965), who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1953 for his discoveries in the field of macromolecular chemistry
Karl Steinbuch (1917–2005), a pioneer of computer science in Germany who coined the German term for the field, Informatik, and made early contributions to machine learning and artificial neural networks
Julius Wess (1934–2007), who co-invented the Wess–Zumino model, the Wess–Zumino–Witten model, the Wess–Zumino consistency condition, and the Thirring–Wess model, in the fields of supersymmetry, quantum field theory and conformal field theory
Ulrich Lemmer (born 1964), a pioneer of organic semiconductors in Germany
Alumni
Johann Jakob Balmer (1825–1898), Swiss mathematician and mathematical physicist
Karl Benz (1844–1929), the inventor of the automobile, a graduate who also received an honorary doctorate in 1914
Martin Brudermüller (born 1961), German businessman, CEO of BASF
Franz Fehrenbach (born 1949), chairman of Robert Bosch GmbH
Robert Gerwig (1820–1885), civil engineer responsible for the Black Forest Railway, the Gotthard Railway, and the Höllental Railway
Hans Kollhoff (born 1946), Postmodernist and New Classical architect
Ludwig Levy (1854–1907), Historicist architect
Sergey Padyukov (1922–1993), architect
Wilhelm Steinkopf (1879–1949), University of Karlsruhe alumni and professor, co-developer of a method for the mass production of mustard gas during World War I
Edward Teller (1908–2003), who is known as the originator of the hydrogen bomb
Roland Mack (born 1949), co-founder of Europa-Park, one of the most popular theme parks in Europe
Oswald Mathias Ungers (1926–2007), rationalist architect
Fritz Noether (1884–1941), mathematician and brother of Emmy Noether
OUBEY (1958–2004), visual artist
Hasso Plattner (born 1944), Dietmar Hopp (born 1940), Klaus Tschira (1940–2015), three of five co-founders of SAP
Stefan Quandt (born 1966), businessman and major BMW shareholder
Franz Reuleaux (1829–1905), a pioneer of kinematics and rector of the Berlin University of Technology
Leopoldo Rother (1894–1978), architect who designed the campus of National University of Colombia in Bogotá
Leopold Ružička (1887–1976), winner of the 1939 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Peter Sanders (born 1967), computer scientist who won the Leibniz Prize in 2012
Saliha Scheinhardt (born 1946), Turkish-German novelist
Amin Shokrollahi (born 1964), Iranian mathematician
Emil Škoda (1839–1900), the founder of the industrial conglomerate Škoda Works
Albert Speer (1905–1981), Adolf Hitler's chief architect
Carsten Spohr (born 1966), CEO of Lufthansa
Boudjemaa Talai (1952–2022), Algerian politician
August Thyssen (1842–1926), industrialist who founded the steel producer Thyssen AG, a predecessor of ThyssenKrupp, and co-founded RWE, one of the largest German electric utilities companies today
Ivan Vasilyov (1893–1979), architect of the Bulgarian National Bank headquarters and the Ministry of Defence
Herbert Wetterauer (born 1957), painter, sculptor, and author
Rolf Wideröe (1902–1996), Norwegian accelerator physicist
Dieter Zetsche (born 1953), chairman of Daimler AG and head of Mercedes-Benz Cars
Tobias Lindner (born 1982 ), German economist and politician
Joachim Nagel (born 1966), economist and President of the Deutsche Bundesbank
Alexander Gerst (born 1976), German European Space Agency astronaut
Michael Waidner (born 1961), German Computer Scientist, Director of Athene (research_center) and Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology
Other
Georg von Hevesy (1886–1966), winner of the 1943 Nobel Prize for his key role in the development of radioactive tracers to study chemical processes such as in the metabolism of animals, worked with Fritz Haber at University of Karlsruhe without formal appointment
Rectors
1968 – 1983 Heinz Draheim
1983 – 1994 Heinz Kunle
1994 – 2002 Sigmar Wittig
2002 – 2009 Horst Hippler
2009–2012: Horst Hippler and Eberhard Umbach
2012–2013: Eberhard Umbach
since 1 October 2013: Holger Hanselka
Points of interest
Botanischer Garten der Universität Karlsruhe, the university's botanical garden
Notes and references
External links
Official website of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Universities and colleges in Karlsruhe
Multidisciplinary research institutes
Educational institutions established in 1825
Educational institutions established in 2009
Architecture schools in Germany
2009 establishments in Germany
Creative Commons books publishing companies
Universities and colleges formed by merger in Germany
Technical universities and colleges in Germany