University of Stuttgart

With a history that dates back to birth of the industrial age, the University of Stuttgart is now one of Germany’s leading technical universities. It specialises in technical and physical sciences, and has a global reputation for excellence in fields such as automotive engineering, automated manufacturing and aerospace engineering. It is a member of the TU9, the association of Germany’s most prestigious, oldest and biggest technical universities. And it is a university with a strong international outlook, recruiting about one in five of its students from overseas, well above the German average. The University of Stuttgart has two sites: one in the city centre, and another in the suburb of Vaihingen, where tuition for most technical subjects takes place. It is divided into 10 faculties. Most of these focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines, but the institution also has a school of humanities, and offers courses in social sciences and economics. The University of Stuttgart maintains a close relationship with neighbouring research institutes, including Stuttgart’s branches of the Max Planck Institute, Fraunhofer Institute, and the German Aerospace Centre. The institution’s history dates back to 1829, and it was known as a technical college for much of its history because of its focus on the technical sciences. It was awarded the right to award doctoral degrees in 1900, and took on its current name in 1967. The University of Stuttgart’s most notable alumnus is probably Gottlieb Daimler, the pioneering motor car inventor and co-founder of the company which is now Mercedes-Benz. Other notable alumni include the Nobel Prize-winning physicists Gerhard Ertl and Horst Störmer.