Hannover Medical School

The Hannover Medical School, founded in 1965, is one of the world's leading university medical centers. Our research and patient care set national and international standards. We are also part of an excellent regional medical network.
Our outstanding success in interdisciplinary collaboration both within the MHH and with extramural scientific institutions is reflected in the fact that the MHH is the German medical university with the most significant grant funding volume.
The origins of the Hannover Medical School (MHH) go back to 1961. In June of that year, the National Science Council (WR) recommended that seven new academies of medicine be founded in the Federal Republic of Germany to increase the number of students of medicine by 7,000. Within the month, the parliament of Lower Saxony decided to go forward with plans to establish a state medical university here.
A committee to found a medical academy in Hannover met for the first time in December of 1961. By February of the following year, it had been decided that this academy would be located in Hannover's city. On April 1, 1963, the government of Lower Saxony issued an order to establish the Medical Academy of Hannover, and this was to be the MHH.
In 1965, after less than four years of planning, the medical school structure had been decided on, and construction plans were complete. On May 17, 1965, a celebration marking the founding of the MHH was held at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover. The founding rector of the MHH was the internist, Professor Rudolf Schoen of the University of Göttingen. He was succeeded by the first elected rector, Professor Fritz Hartmann, who played a decisive role in the concept and physical form of the MHH. The MHH was realized as a university campus on grounds in Roderbruch. The proximity of the clinics and institutes guarantees intense integration of patient care, research, and teaching.
The first classes were held in the summer semester of 1965, in the Hannover Oststadt Hospital. The student-teacher ratio was ideal, with 12 teachers and 41 students, but this did not remain for long. Within ten years, the number of students rose to about 1,000, and after only 20 years, to 3,000. With the addition of new departments, the original number of 12 professors increased to about 140. Only 12 years after the MHH was founded, 80 percent of the planned departments and clinics realized.
HBRS is an interdisciplinary graduate school for physicians (MD/Ph.D., MBBS, Dr.med.) and life scientists (Biology, Biotechnology, Biochemistry, Engineering, Veterinary Sciences, etc.).
Currently, HBRS students come from more than 40 different countries.
In October 2006, HBRS was awarded the title "excellent graduate school." HBRS receives support for more than six years from the German government (DFG) in the German "Excellence Initiative." Additional funding is available through - among others - participating in the DFG Excellence Clusters "REBIRTH" (MHH) as well as "Hearing4all" (Oldenburg/ MHH), the Georg Christoph Lichtenberg program of Lower Saxony (DEWIN) as well as the "Niedersachsen Vorab" program by the Ministry of Science and Culture/ Volkswagenstiftung.
HBRS was founded in October 2003. All graduate programs (see left) of Hannover Medical School and partner institutes are coordinated here.
We are very proud to announce that our Ph.D. program "Molecular Medicine" and HBRS celebrated its 15th anniversary of structured doctoral training in October 2015. We are the pioneering graduate school in Germany in the field of Biomedicine.