The University of Passau stands for excellent research, innovative teaching and multifarious knowledge transfer services. An openness to the world and diversity are essential preconditions for excellence in these areas. The University’s guiding principle is to foster outstanding research, engage in innovative teaching and establish excellent working conditions – particularly for students and early career researchers. The University is also committed to playing a key role as a leading scientific institution in the development of the region through excellent research, research-based transfer and cooperation. Our University is thus a driving force for social innovation processes.
The University of Passau consistently makes use of the opportunities arising from the Bavarian High-Tech Agenda to build on its strengths and achieve these goals. In its research and beyond, the University focuses on three main themes derived from the founding idea of our University and the focus of our academics: digitalisation, sustainability and Europe.
Since 2011, the University of Passau has consistently dealt with a global development across academic disciplines and faculty borders: digitalisation and its societal effects. The successfully acquired DFG Research Training Groups “Privacy and Digitalisation” and “Digital Platform Ecosystems” demonstrate the interdisciplinary approach that the University is pursuing in the field of digitalisation. The Bavarian High-Tech Agenda and the integrated expansion of the Faculty of Computer Science and Mathematics will create further opportunities to deepen this area. On this basis, the academics at the University of Passau are constantly developing the thematic focus on digitalisation in teaching, research and knowledge transfer while placing a strong emphasis on topics relating to artificial intelligence. The interdisciplinary networking of academics falls within the remit of the University's Digitalisation Hub.
The University of Passau is actively committed to social transformation towards social justice, climate neutrality and sustainability. The University's researchers are working intensively on global challenges and developing solution strategies to do justice to European values and the resulting responsibility. This interdisciplinary commitment has resulted in the cross-faculty M.A. Development Studies degree programme, the establishment of the University-wide thematic focus on sustainability and the creation of the Sustainability Hub. The Sustainability Hub coordinates the sustainable development of the University and the associated interdisciplinary cooperation in the areas of research, teaching, knowledge transfer and building technology.
The University of Passau was founded in 1978 and is situated at the borders to Austria and Czechia. This history is revisited in the guiding theme of “Europe” and carried over into a modern, intercultural profile focusing on Europe in the University’s research and teaching. With the Science Hub Europe the University has created a place to promote interdisciplinary dialogue between European universities in the areas of research and teaching, external networking with European networks and with national and local players involved with or relating to Europe. The numerous partnerships with universities and scientific institutions throughout Europe and the diverse research contacts form an ideal basis for this.
The University of Passau has systematically addressed what constitutes “good teaching” with an awareness of the freedom of teaching and, after an intense participatory process involving all faculties, the Senate and the Student Parliament, adopted a mission statement for teaching, thereby committing itself to a culture of high-quality teaching and learning. This provides direction for the social responsibility of teachers towards students in all their diversity. It is a signal to the University community that quality assurance and continuous development of teaching is a matter of course for us.
The University of Passau pursues a comprehensive diversity policy: Diversity is anchored as a cross-sectional task in profile building and University development. With its successful participation in the Stifterverband's “Vielfalt gestalten” (“Shaping Diversity”) audit, it has reaffirmed this focus. The aim is to create a diversity-sensitive organisational structure and culture that offers all University members protection from discrimination, regardless of their origin and life circumstances. The University sees the diverse perspectives of its students and staff as a source of inspiration for innovative research, teaching and administration. At the same time it seeks to create equal opportunities in the sense of general principles of equal treatment. The University of Passau is a gender-equitable, family-friendly, open, inclusive and intercultural higher education institution that prohibits discrimination on the basis of personal and social characteristics. The University is a “participation space” that is equally open to all its members and offers opportunities for action and discourse for participation in the University. Its aim is to create a reliable framework for students and staff to develop their skills, study successfully and excel at their careers.
Any University that strives to maintain sustained excellence in research and teaching must provide a first-rate support base for those setting out on their research careers. Giving non-monetary and financial support of doctoral candidates and postdoctoral early career researchers is therefore a key task of the University of Passau. It does so to give young researchers the best possible opportunities for future careers within and outside of universities. The University, furthermore, prioritises supporting female early career researchers.
The Graduate Centre houses the faculty-specific, inter-faculty and inter-University doctoral programmes as well as individually supervised doctoral and habilitation projects. The main focus of the Graduate Centre's support for early career researchers is enable them to develop the competencies they need to shape and develop their own academic careers and to grow a strong academic network while enhancing the visibility of their research achievements at home and abroad. In 2024, the PYREC Excellence Programme was established as a new support instrument for outstanding doctoral, postdoctoral and habilitation candidates at the University of Passau.
The University of Passau has adopted an employment and qualification policy [German content] for early career researchers in accordance with the Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz (the German federal act on fixed-term contracts in academic institutions).
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