The title University of Applied Sciences makes it internationally clear what the Fachhochschule Erfurt stands for: the combination of scientific training and its practical applications. The new Bachelor and Master degrees are effective and compact study programs, which provide a quick route into professional practice while opening up opportunities for further academic training.
The University of Applied Sciences Erfurt was founded on 01.10.1991. Now, 22 years on, it is an established, modern, and practice-oriented university with a good reputation. Top spots in national rankings underline this (e.g., complying with minimum legal study periods), countless useful contacts with business, intensive local and regional networking, and growing international status. The excellent cooperation with a wide variety of regional and community enterprises, institutions, and organizations is particularly worth mentioning. Held annually since 1998, the business contact day ("Day of Research"), the bi-annual "in-house Heating and Sanitation Exhibition" organized as part of the course on building services and supply engineering, and the annual careers fair ("company networking forum") are outstanding examples of intensive and mutually beneficial cooperation with business. Allied with practical research, the applied teaching gives students the best possible preparation for their later careers. Training provision is rounded off by extensive opportunities to learn languages and intercultural skills and gain necessary and critical qualifications.
There have been reforms to the degree system in Germany since 2000: "Bachelor" and "Master" have become part of everyday academic life outside Anglo-Saxon states, and UAS Erfurt has been involved from the start. Now 95% of all study courses leading to a Bachelor's or Master's degree, enhancing students' prospects of studying internationally. Traditional courses are supplemented by some innovative opportunities for dual training and study.
Restructured committees with more extraordinary decision-making powers and effective administration support teaching and research at a central level. The university has considerable potential for research and development, which it makes available to the region. It provides students with various options to apply their newly-acquired knowledge in practical situations.
A striking feature is the relatively large proportion of female students and staff. More than 37% of employees at the University of Applied Sciences Erfurt, and around 50% of current students, are women. Whereas on average just 5% of chairs are occupied by women nationally, nearly 15% of the university's professors are female. UAS Erfurt was also the first university in Thuringia to elect a woman as Rector.
Between 1993 and 1997, the university was led by Professor Dr. Gisela Rauschhofer. Her successor in this office was Professor Dr.-Ing. habil. Wolfgang Storm from 1997 - 2001 and the third Rector from 2001 to 2005 was Professor Dr. Wolf Wagner. From 2005 to 2011, Prof. Dr.- Ing. Heinrich H. Kill has been Rector and afterward President of the university. Since 2012 Professor Dr. sc. a. Kerstin Wydra was President of the UAS Erfurt. Prof. Dr.- Ing. Volker Zerbe is now - since 2014 - the Rector of the University.
All professors and staff at the University of Applied Sciences Erfurt are working hard to spread its good reputation. A large number of students are already from outside Thuringia. By ensuring new, innovative, and flexible development of traditional study courses, the university responds to increasingly fast-moving changes in the requirements for modern, practice-based, and contemporary training for students.
Although only founded on 1st October 1991, the University of Applied Sciences Erfurt follows long-established training engineers' traditions in the city. With around 1000 new students annually and approx. Four thousand five hundred students (in the winter semester 2007/2008), the University of Applied Sciences Erfurt, one of two universities in the state capital, is a highly attended university in Thuringia. It stands out for its broadly based interdisciplinary range of courses in twelve branches of study.
The original faculties of architecture, civil engineering, horticulture, supply engineering (now service and power engineering), landscape architecture, and social welfare (now social studies) were joined in 1992 by economic science, in 1994/95 by conservation and restoration as well as traffic and transportation, and in 2000 by applied computer science. The range of subjects was further supplemented by forestry and ecosystem management in 2007 and urban and spatial planning in 2008.
New Bachelor's and Master's degree courses in civil engineering and applied computer science were introduced in the winter semester 2000/01, followed by further study courses. These are designed to meet the call for modern, practice-oriented training. At the same time, the provision of courses is directed at regional needs and new developments. An example is the in-service Bachelor's degree in childhood education.
The study, teaching, research, and further academic education are the essential cornerstones to which the university's autonomous committees, headed up by the Senate, are dedicated. The university "lives out" strong ties with practice in its close contact with companies and institutions. Cooperative partnerships link the university with other universities worldwide. Increasing numbers of international students and lecturers are coming to Erfurt, while their German counterparts complete placements or study semesters in countries worldwide.
