Oldenburg is an attractive and nordic city for students. It has a friendly downtown with an extensive pedestrian area and a variety of shopping opportunities. Particularly noteworthy is the large cultural offer in the city of Oldenburg through, for example, the Kulturetage, the Oldenburger Staatstheater or the literature office, to name only few.

Another advantage is the well-developed network of bicycle paths in the city. The proximity to the North Sea leads to excursions to the UNESCO World Heritage Site. According to the Institute for Economics, Oldenburg has made the greatest progress in the area of quality of life in Germany in the past five years.

Facts about the city of Oldenburg:

• approx. 168.000 inhabitants
• 34 districts
• One of the four biggest cities in Lower Saxony
• Award as Fair-Trade Town in 2019
• City of science 2009
• According to a study by the Austrian Traffic Club (VCÖ) in 2016, Oldenburg is one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in Europe

We have to make science more human again.

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Carl von Ossietzky (1889 - 1938)

The Carl von Ossietzky University was founded in 1973. This makes her one of the younger universities in Germany. Their goal is to find answers to the central questions of society in the 21st century - with leading interdisciplinary research and teaching.

The university works closely with more than 200 universities worldwide. Besides, it is connected with non-university institutions in research, education, culture and business. The research location will be further strengthened by the establishment of the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity, a Max Planck junior research group and three Fraunhofer working groups. In addition, there is the Virtual Helmholtz Institute.

Facts about the University of Oldenburg:

• 6 faculties
• In total around 16.000 students
• Employment of 222 professors
• Offer of 101 courses of study
• 1.300 study seats in the university library
• Registration within the SEM programm per year: 45 students

Research and teaching on environmental protection and sustainability have accompanied the University of Oldenburg since its founding in 1973. At the costal location, marine research (especially regarding shallow seas and coastal research) as well as research concerning renewable energies have been established research foci from quite early onwards. In the field of renewable energies, the University of Oldenburg is one of the leading international universities and offers a large number of study programs in this field.

In addition to this natural scientific focus, there has been an ecological focus in economics since 1997. Furthermore, an ecological focus emerged in the social sciences, computer science, educational research and in other fields of science.

The research center COAST, founded in 2005, bundles the activities of this sustainability research at the University of Oldenburg. The Center's claim is to make the University of Oldenburg a leading transdisciplinary research and teaching location in Germany in the field of sustainability - and to keep a clear focus on the relationship to the coast.

Thus, COAST can draw on the expertise of five member institutions:

• CEM Center for Environmental Modelling
• CENTOS Oldenburg Center for Sustainability Economics and Management
• ForWind Center for Wind Energy Research
• ICBM Institut for Chemistry und Biology of the Sea
• ZENARiO Center for Sustainable Spatial Development in Oldenburg

COAST will continue to coordinate and design the teaching activities of the sustainability-related study programs at Bachelor, Master and PhD levels. This includes the Master Cluster "Environment and Sustainability", which in addition to the SEM degree program also includes a wide range of other research and application-related degree programs. Depending on the focus of interest, students can choose from various modules in the natural sciences, social sciences and economics, as well as in the fields of energy and the environment.