Academic life and research in the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region are concentrated at and around 22 institutes of further education* with a total enrolment of more than 83,000 students. National and international ranking lists have been testifying their excellent standards for many years, especially in the fields of life sciences, natural science, humanities and social sciences.
The largest university with around 29,000 students, and the most important source of scientific inspiration, is the University of Heidelberg. As one of Germany's nine elite universities, it has been receiving grants from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the scope of its Excellence Initiative since 2007. Two additional clusters of excellence and three postgraduate schools have been approved as part of this grant support. The German Research Foundation (DFG) is currently promoting nine special fields of research at Germany's oldest university. Between 2005 and 2007 alone, it was provided with funds totalling more than 215 million euros. Elsewhere in the country, only LMU Munich and TH Aachen were able to acquire more funding.
Whereas the Ruperto Carola University pursues the concept of an interdisciplinarily networked comprehensive university, the focus of the region's second largest university in Mannheim with its 11,000 enrolled students is clearly set on the social sciences and economics. Its flagship is the course in business administration, which together with the affiliated Mannheim Business School trains the managerial elite of tomorrow. The humanities, as well as mathematics and information science, also enjoy an excellent reputation. The region's third university in Palatine Landau has more than 6,400 students and has made a name for itself nationally in fields such as educational science, environmental sciences and psychology.
The advanced technical colleges (Heidelberg, Ludwigshafen, Mannheim, Worms) and dual colleges of Baden-Württemberg (Mannheim, Mosbach) belong to the think tanks with a high practical relevance. What distinguishes them all is a modern mix of varied international study courses and close co-operation with regional commerce and industry. Outstanding in their field: That is the common characteristic of numerous, wide-ranging specialist institutes of further education such as the Popakademie Mannheim (unique in Germany), the College of Jewish Studies in Heidelberg, the DHV in Speyer as an elite learning centre of administration, or the Department of Applied Linguistics and Cultural Sciences of the University of Mainz in Germersheim (South Palatinate), which is the world's largest university training centre for translators and interpreters.
