Constructor University (CU)

Constructor University is a top-ranked private university in Bremen, Germany. English-speaking, international, and highly diverse, we enable students to achieve their full potential by upholding the highest standards in research and teaching. Commit ighest standards in research and teaching. Committed to social good as well as regional and global economic development, Constructor University delivers top-class educational and personal development opportunities to its students in a stimulating, secure and highly diverse campus environment, through cutting-edge technology, learner-centered pedagogy, and excellent research and innovation delivered by a distinguished research faculty. Constructor University was founded with the support of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, the University of Bremen, and Rice University, Houston, Texas. Organization: Private, state-recognized university, gGmbH (limited liability company whose profits are utilized for non-commercial purposes) Constructor University (previously called Jacobs University and International University Bremen) was founded in 1999 with the support of the University of Bremen, Rice University in Houston, Texas, and the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. This year the university got preliminary state recognition by the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. In fall 2001, 130 students from 40 countries arrived on campus and started their studies together with 27 professors – it was the start of the unique, highly international and diverse community that has become the hallmark of what marks Constructor University to this day. Ex-chancellor of Germany Helmut Schmidt presented the idea of the university in his speech at the official opening of the university in 2001: The Jacobs Foundation invested €200 million in the institution in November 2006, thus taking over a two-thirds majority of the partnership share. It was the largest donation in Europe ever made to a university. At the beginning of 2007, the university changed its name to Jacobs University Bremen. Together with Universität Bremen, Jacobs University Bremen received a 5.8 million euro grant from Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) in the framework of the Excellence Initiative of the Federal Government and the Länder in 2007 to establish the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS). The campus is located on the site of the former Roland Barracks in Bremen-Grohn. The site was erected in 1936 during the National Socialist period as anti-aircraft barracks called Flak-Kaserne Grohn. After the Second World War it was used as headquarter of the American Military Forces for the Bremen enclave. Plans of the Senate of Bremen and the American Military Government for the Bremen enclave to install an International University already in these times at the site could not be realized. In 1948, it was transformed into a displaced-persons camp by the International Refugee Organization under the management of the American forces known as Camp Grohn. In 1951, the site was given back to the US Army and served as replacement center for US Forces in Germany. Shortly after the formation of the Bundeswehr, Camp Grohn was passed into the responsibility of the German government in 1955 and renamed Roland Kaserne. Roland Kaserne housed a Bundeswehr logistics school during the Cold War. In 1999, the military base was inactivated, making way for the university. Converting a military base into a university was an architectural challenge. The architectural firm commissioned (Böge & Lindner Architekten, Hamburg) received several awards for its work, among them the BDA-Price (Preis des Bundes Deutscher Architekten) in 2003 (for restructuration of Alfried-Krupp-College), an award in the frame of Deutscher Städtebaupreis in 2004 (for the restructuration as a whole) and the BDA-Price for the restructuration of Campus Center Lab 2 and Lab 3 in 2006. In 2009, with the College Nordmetall the first completely new building on campus was erected. This was followed in 2012 with the second new building: the Sports and Convention Center, designed by the architect Max Dudler, and which received a Special Mention in by the BDA Bremen Prize 2014. ...view more