50 years of Paderborn University

On 1. August 1972, today’s Paderborn University was founded as a comprehensive university. The comprehensive university emerged from several predecessor institutions and continued the university tradition of the city of Paderborn. As early as October 1972, a large number of new rooms were built on the campus, followed by a university library and a canteen in 1977. Even in the founding phase, importance was attached to an international orientation. For this reason, the first of many further partnership agreements was signed with the Université du Maine in Le Mans in 1973. In 1979, the university was accepted into the German Research Foundation (DFG).

The 1990s continued to be marked by research. This is reflected, among other things, in the establishment of the first graduate college at the university comprehensive (1993), the establishment of the first special research area (1995) and the inauguration of the Paderborn Teacher Training Centre (PLAZ) (1996). The link between business and science was also promoted with the founding of the Westphalian Environmental Centre (WUZ) (1993) and the expansion of the network around the Technology Park. In 1992, the Leibniz Prize was awarded for the first time to scientists at Paderborn University.

The 2010s started with campus expansions – especially in the Paderborn city area. The Paderborn campus near Fürstenallee developed into an important location for innovation and research in the region with the research buildings ZM1 (2010) and ZM2 (2020). Laboratory, learning and work spaces were also being created, among other things through the establishment of the AStA city campus (2019). The Mensa was expanded, and in 2021 Building X was created as a new high-performance computing centre housing the Noctua supercomputer, one of the fastest and most powerful computers in Germany. In 2016, the student number of 20,000 was exceeded for the first time.