The University of Cologne is a university of applied sciences in Cologne with the spectrum of subjects of a full university. It was founded in 1919 as the second university in the Weimar Republic (after the University of Hamburg). After the loss of the Kaiser Wilhelm University in Strasbourg due to the outcome of the First World War, it was to continue its tradition and strengthen the “German position on the Rhine”.

With more than 45,000 students [in the winter semester 2023/24, it is one of the largest attendance universities in Germany in terms of numbers. In 2012 to 2019, it held the status of excellence as part of the third Excellence Initiative for the Promotion of Higher