Gift puts private university in Germany in the black

Not being a state school, the International University Bremen isn’t eligible to compete for funding through Germany’s excellence initiative (see the story on page 28). But the country’s only nonspecialized private university has won big with what may be the largest-ever philanthropic donation to higher education in Europe. As a thank-you for €200 million (roughly $265 million) from the Swiss-based Jacobs Foundation, IUB will change its name next spring to Jacobs University Bremen.

The Jacobs Foundation announced on 1 November that it will give the university €15 million a year for the next five years to balance its €40 million operating budget, plus €125 million in 2011 for its endowment. Klaus J. Jacobs, whose fortune comes from the coffee of the same name and who is originally from Bremen, said in a statement that his foundation aims to provide young people with an education that “has practical relevance and which has been developed with society’s future in mind.”

Not surprisingly, that goal meshes with the university’s plans, which the new president, theoretical physicist Joachim Treusch, describes as “educating global citizens to take over responsibility. They should learn how to solve the grand challenges the world is coping with now.” Energy, communications, education, health, and water are among the research focuses at IUB.

With initial funding from the Bremen state government and advice from scientists at the University of Bremen and Rice University in Houston, Texas, IUB opened its doors in fall 2001. Currently, the university has about 1000 students from nearly 90 countries—75% come from outside of Germany—and 100 faculty members. Classes are taught in English, and the university uses the US system of bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD degrees. Unusual for Germany, all undergraduates live on campus.

IUB’s physics and astronomy “have a very good standing,” says Matthias Bartelmann, the dean of physics at the University of Heidelberg. “I am really happy they managed to attract this additional funding. There were disturbing rumors [about the difficulties facing IUB] in the newspapers.” As a private university, Bartelmann says, IUB “is an exciting experiment. They are more free to define their own rules—to appoint professors and set their salaries, to design their study plans.” Adds Treusch, “State universities and even the government can learn what reducing state influence on universities will bring.”