Bielefeld University combines classical academic tradition with innovative research and teaching. It was founded as a new type of university in 1969 with the aims of re-establishing the unity between research and teaching advocated by Humboldt, and of opening up the frontiers between the disciplines. The university has succeeded in maintaining and developing essential elements of this reform concept despite a considerable increase in student numbers. Bielefeld University has attained an outstanding position among national and international academic institutions on the strength of its research achievements and unique courses of studies, its technology transfer and further education programmes.

Anybody who has experienced life in the established university towns of venerable academic tradition will probably remember dashing from one end of the place to the other to get from lecture to seminar, to borrow books from the University Library, to have lunch in the refectory, or to register in the Students' Office. These people will appreciate the advantages of Bielefeld University: all the faculties and institutions are housed under one roof. All the indispensable service centres are easily reached: for instance the University Computer Centre, which offers students access to computers and to the Internet, the Writing Lab, or the much lauded University Library. Studying is greatly facilitated by the modern computerised catalogue and lending systems, by the open-access library containing about 1.9 million books, the multi-media classroom, and the un-usually long and user-friendly library opening hours extending into the night. The proximity facilitates close cooperation among the disciplines, as the sociologist Helmut Schelsky intended when the university was founded. From the main university hall you have access to all the lecture halls, including those equipped for multi-media purposes; it is a vibrant meeting place demonstrating the communicative aspect of the architectonic structure. It constitutes the inner-university market place with shops and services of all sorts, cafés and restaurants, with stages and information displays. Music is to be heard there; public meetings take place; it is a convenient rendezvous to meet somebody for lunch in the refectory or for a cup of coffee afterwards. And if you want to relax, you can do so in the swimming pool, in the sports gyms, on the tennis courts and football fields, or in the Teutoburg Forest in the immediate vicinity