Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is a public research university in Karlsruhe, Germany.
The institute is considered a national research center of the renowned Helmholtz Association.
It was founded in 2009 when the University of Karlsruhe, founded in 1825 as a state research university, merged with the Karlsruhe Research Center, originally founded in 1956 as a national center for nuclear research.

Information about the university

The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology is a member of the Alliance of German Technical Universities (TU9), an association of Germany’s largest and most important technical universities. In 2006, the institute was one of three universities to receive Excellence Status as part of the Excellence Initiative.
As part of the German Excellence Strategy, the institute was named one of eleven Universities of Excellence among the leading technical universities in Germany and Europe in 2019. According to various statistical rankings, the institute is considered the strongest research-oriented German university in engineering and life sciences.
According to the Nature Index 2019-2020, which measures the scientific strength of various institutions based on publications in 82 top-class scientific journals, KIT ranks first among German universities in the field of physical sciences, sixth in Europe, and 50th worldwide.

Message from the University

We create and transfer knowledge to society and the environment.
From basic research to applications, we are leaders in a broad range of disciplines, including natural sciences, engineering, business, and the humanities and social sciences.
We make significant contributions to humanity’s global challenges in the areas of energy, mobility, and information. As a major scientific institution, we compete internationally and hold a leading position in Europe.

Main sections:

The university’s departments contribute to the further development of relevant academic disciplines. They organize education and study programs, offer bachelor’s and master’s programs, doctoral programs, and postdoctoral research, award corresponding academic degrees, and manage the education and study programs related to appointment and quality assurance procedures.
Universities:

Civil Engineering, Geography and Environmental Sciences
Chemistry and Life Sciences
Chemical and process engineering
Electrical engineering and information technology
Humanities and Social Sciences
Computer science
Mechanical engineering
mathematics
physics
Economics and Management

Training

The university offers a wide range of educational opportunities, with the possibility of studying between majors and part-time research programs—for example, the General Studies program—which allows students to attend lectures not directly related to their field of study to develop their creativity.
Instruction in the early semesters of the program is more theoretical, with a strong emphasis on mathematics in engineering and the life sciences. In the later semesters, students can choose between practical and theoretical subjects.
Admission requirements vary by department. While students in programs such as Industrial Engineering and Management are selected based on their academic qualifications and community involvement, other departments, including Physics, Computer Science, and Meteorology, do not offer pre-selection for courses.
All degree programs require a minimum number of examinations, so-called orientation examinations, which must be successfully passed in the first three semesters before students may complete their studies.
Due to the enormous amount of learning required to meet the prerequisites, some engineering programs have a high dropout rate!

Outstanding graduates

The institute’s alumni and faculty include six Nobel laureates and nine Leibniz Prize winners. The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology is famous for the many inventors and entrepreneurs who have studied or taught there, including the founders of the German multinational software company SAP SE.

More about the university

Outstanding graduates

Karl Ferdinand Braun (1850–1918), who developed the cathode-ray tube, widely used in television sets, in 1897. He received the Nobel Prize for this invention in 1909.
Franz Grashof (1826–1893), who made a significant contribution to the understanding of convection; the Grashof number is named after him.
Fritz Haber (1868–1934), who developed the high-pressure synthesis of ammonia in 1909 and received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918.
Hermann Staudinger (1881–1965), winner of the 1953 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discoveries in molecular chemistry.
Karl Steinbuch (1917–2005), a German computer science pioneer who coined the German term Informatik and made early contributions to machine learning and artificial neural networks.
Julius Weiss (1934–2007), co-inventor of the Wess-Zumino and Wess-Zumino-Witten models in the areas of supersymmetry, quantum field theory and conformal field theory.
Ulrich Lehmer (born 1964), a pioneer of the organic semiconductor industry in Germany.
Anke Susanne Müller has received the European Research Prize for her groundbreaking research in accelerator physics.
Pascal Friedrich, head of the AiMat group at the Institute for Theoretical Computer Science, received the Heinz Mayer-Leibnitz Prize, one of Germany's most prestigious awards for young scientists, for his outstanding work in the field of computational materials design.
Almut Arneth from the Institute of Meteorology and Environmental Research was awarded the 2022 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize for her outstanding contributions to ecosystem research.