Founded in 1386, Heidelberg University is Germany’s oldest university and one of the leading research institutions in Europe. Heidelberg provides excellent research and education opportunities for scholars and students from all over the world. Moreover, Heidelberg is one of the few universities to have succeeded in the recent Excellence Initiative, a competition funded by the German federal government to promote outstanding research at German universities. A comprehensive university, the Ruperto Carola combines traditional values with forward-looking scientific concepts in research and teaching. The wide spectrum of disciplines offered at Heidelberg University includes sixty study courses for undergraduate students and sixty-eight for graduate students (many of which are taught in English) spanning the social and natural sciences, humanities, law and medicine. They range for example from Archeology to Translation Studies, from Applied Computer Science to Theology or from Economy to Physics. Noteworthy among the university’s outstanding research areas are our Transcultural Studies, Molecular Life Sciences, Medicine, Physics and Astronomy, Chemistry, Mathematics and Scientific Computing departments and research groups. The Ruperto Carola is deeply committed to strengthening its disciplines while exploiting multidisciplinary opportunities to probe crosscutting transdisciplinary issues. In this sense, Heidelberg University strives to build bridges – between faculties and subjects, between university and non-university research institutions, between academia and business. By fostering cross-institutional collaboration, the Ruperto Carola will continue establishing outstanding interdisciplinary research centres in Heidelberg. Heidelberg University is home to over 28,000 full-time students, including more than 5,000 foreign students. The Ruperto Carola also attracts more than 500 international scholars as Visiting Professors each academic year. Over the centuries, Heidelberg University has offered tens of thousands of international students an opportunity to immerse themselves in the academic life of one of the world’s premier institutions of higher learning; for many of them, the Ruperto Carola was a stepping-stone toward a successful career. Set in the picturesque Neckar Valley, Heidelberg’s beautiful historic centre offers a romantic small-town atmosphere with cosmopolitan appeal. Students and academics alike enjoy superior access to the university‘s outstanding research facilities, including a first-rate library with 3.1 million volumes, and to internationally acclaimed non-university research institutions, such as the German Cancer Research Center or the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law.