As is to be expected at a North German university, there has been academic research into Low German in Oldenburg even before the current degree programmes were established.

It all began with the work of Dr Marron C. Fort, who, as Academic Senior Councillor here since 1983, researched Low German in north-west Germany as well as Sater Frisian, and from 1986 to 2003 was head of the Low German department at the university library. This resulted in publications on the role of Low German in coexistence with Frisian, for example Low German and Frisian between Lauwerzee and Weser (1995) and Low German as the second language of the Sater Frisians (1997). Since 1989, Dr Volker Broweleit has also offered seminars at the Institute for German Studies with references to Low German. Prof. Dr Wolfgang Rohde, who held one of the first professorships in linguistics in Oldenburg, has focused even more intensively on Low German in his research and teaching. His publications include the annotated edition of the Middle Low German Chronica van den groten daden der Graven van Oldenburg (1993) and the essay Die oldenburgischen Sprachenverhältnisse zwischen Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit (1995). Rohde is also to thank for the awarding of teaching assignments at the Institute for German Studies, which were taken up by Gabriele Diekmann-Dröge in 1995. Since then, there has been a small but continuous range of courses on Low German topics (dialectology, language history, didactics, literary history) for students of German Studies.

The academic symposia organised by the "Spieker" (Heimatbund für das Oldenburger Land) in cooperation with the University of Oldenburg since 1997 have also been significant for the establishment of the Low German department at the university and have provided important impetus for the strengthening and promotion of Low German in terms of language policy. Topics included Low German in the Charter, what now? (1997), More Low German in the media (1999), Low German at the universities: Research and teaching (2001), Low German at school (2004), Low German and Frisian in education (2006), 10 years of the European Language Charter in Lower Saxony (2009).

Against the background of the closure of the Chair of Low German in Göttingen, which was responsible for the degree programme "Low German Philology", the only one of its kind in Germany at the time, efforts to establish a corresponding professorship in Oldenburg intensified from 2005 onwards. Various speaker groups and institutions, including the Institute for Low German in Bremen, the Bundesrat för Nedderdüütsch, the Low German section of the Niedersächsischer Heimatbund, the Ostfriesische Landschaft and the Oldenburgische Landschaft, and at the University of Oldenburg, above all Prof Dr Gerd Hentschel as Dean of School III - School of Linguistics and Cultural Studies, were very committed to this.

In 2007, the German Studies professorship "Pragmatics and Sociolinguistics/Low German" was established and filled by Prof Dr Jörg Peters. From the winter semester 2007/2008, the "Low German and Sater Frisian specialisation" was established at the Institute for German Studies under his leadership, which formed the basis for further research and teaching of Low German. From 2008, language acquisition courses for beginners and advanced learners were also added. Many students took advantage of the opportunity to complete a "Specialisation in Low German and Sater Frisian" within German Studies at and to graduate with the "Certificate in Low German". The first certificate was issued in 2010. This was the first opportunity to provide prominent proof of the credits earned and thus, for example, to be employed as a teacher with a Low German qualification at schools.

Thanks to the gradual increase in academic staff at the specialisation, the range of courses on offer has been continuously expanded - both quantitatively and, above all, thematically. An important step in this direction was the establishment of another professorship for "Low German Literature in Historical and Cultural Studies Perspective", which was filled by Prof Dr Doreen Brandt in October 2020. In autumn 2023, Dr Franziska Buchmann was also appointed to a didactic position, which deals with issues relating to the acquisition and teaching of Low German in research and teaching. This now ensures comprehensive coverage of all relevant research and teaching areas for the Bachelor's degree programme in Low German, which will start in the winter semester of 2023, and for the Master of Education degree programmes that will follow in 2026/2027.