University of Potsdam

The University of Potsdam is a public university in Potsdam, capital of the state of Brandenburg, northeastern Germany.

The university is mainly situated across three campuses in the city. Some faculty buildings are part of the New Palace of Sanssouci which is known for its UNESCO World Heritage status.

The University of Potsdam is Brandenburg's largest university and the fourth largest in the Berlin-Brandenburg metropolitan area. More than 8,000 people are working in scholarship and science.

In 2009 the University of Potsdam became a winner in the "Excellence in Teaching" initiative of the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft (Business innovation agency for the German science system).

History

The University of Potsdam was formed in 1991 by the amalgamation of the Karl Liebknecht College of Education and the Brandenburg State College, as well as several other smaller institutions. As the university in large part emerged from the College of Education, emphasis today is still placed on teacher training.

Historical buildings

Some parts of the university are located in historical buildings that have been named as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. The university library and the Institute of History can be found in a part of the commons in the park of Sanssouci, at the New Palace, as can the Institute of Mathematics in the former stables.

The other campuses, Babelsberg and Golm, are also of historical interest. The oldest buildings of the Golm campus were built in the 1930s to house the Luftwaffe's intelligence department. After World War II the College of Law of the East German Ministry for State Security moved in.

The current Faculty of Law is located in Babelsberg/Griebnitzsee in the former presidial and administrative buildings of the German Red Cross (1939/40). Other lecture halls and buildings were built in the 1950s directly behind the Schloss Babelsberg for the Academy of Justice and the East German state.

Campuses

As the largest university in the state of Brandenburg, the University of Potsdam mainly stretches across three campuses on the city's outskirts:

New Palace

New Palace, Sanssouci (Am Neuen Palais): Faculties of Philosophy, Institutes of Mathematics and Sports. The university's main campus, which includes the Auditorium Maximum, is situated in the immediate proximity of Park Sanssouci. The Communs – the prestigious annexes of the New Palace are home to some of the institutes of the Faculty of Arts. The eighteenth century baroque buildings, which disguise their former purpose as the Palace's offices and service rooms with staircases, porticos, cupolas, and rich ornamentation, are currently home to the university's presidential office and administration. The Institutes of Sports Science and Sports Medicine as well as the Institute for Mathematics can be found on the Campus Am Neuen Palais.

Golm

Golm: Faculties of Humanities, Mathematics and Science. Most institutes of the Faculty of Science as well as the Human Sciences Faculty are located in Potsdam-Golm, forming one of the largest science parks in the region. The Institute of Computer Science moved to Campus Golm in 2021 following a donation for a new building by the Hasso Plattner Foundation. Three Max Planck Institutes and two Fraunhofer Institutes as well as the start-up center GO:IN have already settled here.

Babelsberg

Potsdam-Babelsberg/Griebnitzsee: Faculties of Law, Economics and Social Studies, the Hasso Plattner Institute for Software Systems Engineering. Campus Griebnitzsee is situated along the city border with Berlin, not far from the famous Babelsberg film studios, and houses the law faculty and the faculty of economics and social sciences. The Institute of Computer Sciences (located in Golm since 2021) works with the Hasso Plattner Institute for Software Systems Engineering, a completely privately funded co-institute of the University of Potsdam, to allow students to take courses at both institutes. Other small institutes and departments exist in the City of Potsdam. The Botanischer Garten Potsdam is the university's botanical garden.

Academic profile

At the beginning of the winter semester of the 2020/2021 academic year, roughly 22,000 young people were studying at the University of Potsdam. The University is placing particular emphasis by establishing four university research focuses. Constantly increasing third-party funding volume testifies to the quality of the research conducted at the University today. The University of Potsdam also has successful, productive cooperative agreements with more than 30 non-university research institutions in the region. With interdisciplinary research agenda, the area of excellence links the departments of Psychology, Linguistics, and Sports and Health Science. UP offers more than 150 degree programs in various fields, offered in German as well as other languages, notably French and English.

Faculties

As is common in Germany, the University of Potsdam's teaching and research programmes are carried out along the lines of faculties. The university contains the following faculties:

Digital Engineering Faculty

The Digital Engineering Faculty, jointly established by the University of Potsdam and the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI), is the first privately funded department of a German public university.

Faculty of Law

The Law Faculty's curriculum offers the basic and required courses necessary to become a fully qualified lawyer. This training includes civil law, criminal law, and public law. At Potsdam, the areas of concentration in research and teaching comprise the fundamentals of law, civil judicature, business law, international law, public administration as well as business, tax, and environmental criminal law. All these areas offer ample opportunity for specialized study. Additional events for training and continuing education for practitioners in the municipal realm are offered by the Institute for Local Government Studies and in international relations by the Human Rights Centre. Furthermore, a German-French law program exists in cooperation with University Paris Ouest-Nanterre/La Défense.

Faculty of Philosophy

In recent years, the University of Potsdam's Philosophical Faculty has redefined itself in the spirit of cross-disciplinary cultural studies. Research and teaching at the Institutes for Religious Studies, Jewish Studies, Jewish Theology, Philosophy, History, Classical Philology, German Studies, English and American Studies, Romance Studies, Slavic Studies as well as Art and Media are devoted to a broad understanding of culture that is defined by including all aspects of human life.

Drawing from the broad range of faculty specialties, the thematic concentrations of "Cultures in/of Mobility", "Forms of Life and the Know How of Living" as well as "Region and Identity in Europe" were created. This emphasis in regard to content encourages interdisciplinary cooperation, but it also incorporates perspectives that are outside the Philosophical Faculty's traditional subject canon. The Focus Area Unsettled Cultures, for example, investigates among others the history and cultural practice of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and thereby combines different areas of study, such as theology, literature, ethics, medicine, and cosmology.

International partnerships

A cooperation among the universities in Berlin (Humboldt University of Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, Free University of Berlin) and University of Potsdam exists, which allows students of these universities to take courses at the respective partner universities, in accordance with their curriculum.

The University of Potsdam is well connected: it has found scientific partners of international standing with the Potsdam-Institute for Climate Impact Research and the German Institute for Human Nutrition – both institutes of the Leibniz Association – as well as the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam – German Research Centre for Geosciences. Close cooperation and joint professorships also exist with the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology, the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, and many other research institutions. Last but not least, the university collaborates with both institutes of the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft in the Science Park Potsdam-Golm, a research campus that is growing in significance far beyond Germany's borders. Similarly, the Hasso Plattner Institute of University of Potsdam in cooperation with Stanford University offers a design school based in Stanford University, the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. While it is located at Stanford University, various partnerships as well as a degree is offered through University of Potsdam.

The university offers a number of German courses, organizes intercultural training workshops, and matches up tandem-partners who want to learn one another's language. Selected study programs, in particular several Master programs, may also be completed in English.

International partnerships offer opportunities to spend one semester or a full year at one of many partner universities. This includes Jewish studies in Israel, sports management in Australia, and language and politics in Moscow. Potsdam is a popular choices both for the Erasmus and Tempus as well as for the Fulbright program and the international programs of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Several exchange programs and partnerships exist. An institution at Potsdam's Law Faculty that is unique in Germany is the German-French law program, which is operated in cooperation with the partner University Paris Ouest-Nanterre/La Défense. At the University of Potsdam students can participate not just in an exchange program, but they also have the opportunity in their first two years in the standard German law program to complete an additional, self-contained program of study in French law. This French part of the program is taught by French visiting scholars from the partner university and is conducted in French.

Voltaire Prize

The Voltaire Prize for Tolerance, International Understanding and Respect for Differences has been awarded by the university since 2017. It is awarded "for the scientific examination of the topics of international understanding, tolerance and respect for differences and which honors scientists who are committed to freedom in research and education and advocate freedom of expression". As of 2021, the prize is worth €5,000, and sponsored by the Friede Springer Foundation. The university aligns itself with Voltaire's and La Mettrie's contribution to the Age of Enlightenment.

Recipients of the prize include:

• 2017: Hilal Alkan, Turkish political scientist
• 2018: Gladys Tzul Tzul, Guatemalan sociologist
• 2019: Ahmad Milad Karimi, Afghan philosopher
• 2020: Gábor Polyák, Hungarian media scientist
• 2021: Elisabeth Kaneza, Rwandan political scientist and legal scholar
• 2022: Duong Keo, Cambodian historian and political scientist
• 2023: Amy Lai, Hong Kong-born lawyer and author
• 2024: Gerawork Teferra Gizaw, from Ethiopia and Olga Shparaga, Belarusian philosopher and political activist
• 2025: Rosario Figari Layús, Argentinian sociologist

Эх сурвалж: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)