University of Bonn

The University of Bonn, officially the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (German: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn), is a public research university in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the Rhein-Universität (English: Rhine University) on 18 October 1818 by Frederick William III, as the linear successor of the Kurkölnische Akademie Bonn (English: Academy of the Prince-elector of Cologne) which was founded in 1777. The University of Bonn offers many undergraduate and graduate programs in a range of subjects and has 544 professors. The University of Bonn is a member of the German U15 association of major research-intensive universities in Germany and has the title of "University of Excellence" under the German Universities Excellence Initiative.

Bonn has eight Clusters of Excellence, the most of any German university; the Hausdorff Center for Mathematics, the Matter and Light for Quantum Computing cluster, Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies, PhenoRob: Research for the Future of Crop Production, the Immune Sensory System cluster, ECONtribute: Markets and Public Policy, Color meets Flavor and Our Dynamic Universe. The University and State Library Bonn (ULB Bonn) is the central university and archive library of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and North Rhine-Westphalia; it holds more than five million volumes.

As of October 2020, among its notable alumni, faculty and researchers are 11 Nobel Laureates, 5 Fields Medalists, 12 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize winners as well as some of the most gifted minds in Natural science, e.g. August Kekulé, Heinrich Hertz and Justus von Liebig; Eminent mathematicians, such as Karl Weierstrass, Felix Klein, Friedrich Hirzebruch and Felix Hausdorff; Major philosophers, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, and Jürgen Habermas; German poets and writers, for example Heinrich Heine, Paul Heyse and Thomas Mann; Painters, like Max Ernst; Political theorists, for instance Carl Schmitt and Otto Kirchheimer; Statesmen, viz. Konrad Adenauer and Robert Schuman; economists, like Walter Eucken, Ferdinand Tönnies and Joseph Schumpeter; and furthermore Prince Albert, Pope Benedict XVI and Wilhelm II.