Freie Universitaet Berlin is one of the leading research universities in Germany and distinguishes itself through its modern and international character. In university rankings, Freie Universitaet Berlin ranks among the best universities. Freie Universitaet is also one of the bigger universities in Germany, offering Bachelor and Master courses in about 100 subjects for 33000 students â 16 per cent of whom come from abroad.
For many foreign scholars, Freie Universitaet is the university of choice for their stay in Germany: A recent ranking by the renowned Alexander von Humboldt Foundation showed that Freie Universitaet Berlin is the second favourite research location in Germany for the foundation's international fellows, number one for scholars in the humanities.
Freie Universitaet Berlin was one of nine German top-universities to win in the "Initiative for Excellence," a national competition for universities organized by the German Federal Government. Winning a distinction for five doctoral programs, three interdisciplinary research clusters (some of them in cooperation with other universities) and its overall institutional strategy, Freie Universitaet Berlin was the single most successful university in the initiative.
Without the medical school, Freie Universitaet is currently lead university for eight collaborative research centers of the German Research Foundation DFG and also has five DFG research units. Fourteen scholars of Freie Universitaet have to date been awarded a Leibniz Prize of the DFG, the most important German prize for research achievements. With the amount of 80 million Euros of external funding acquired each year, Freie Universitaet canvasses a significant proportion of its income from third-party funds.
