Department of Computer Science

RWTH Aachen University is one of Europe’s most highly regarded technical universities. This is not least exemplified by its outstanding performance in the recent excellence initiative of the German federal and state governments.
One of the most successful and highest-ranked Computer Science departments in Germany, we offer practical research and education based on a solid theoretical and formal background. The department has close links to other departments and faculties, primarily from engineering. We also have close connections to regional, national, and international industry.
Well ahead of most German Computer Science departments, RWTH Informatik introduced competitive international English-language Master programs already a decade ago. The Department has almost 2,000 students. Currently, the annual number of our Masters graduates well exceeds 200; about one third of them come from our international programs. They all are well-prepared for advanced development tasks.
Approximately 20% of the students with a Masters degree go on to pursue a Doctorate. Each year, about 25 candidates receive their degrees. Typically, they subsequently hold leading positions in industrial R&D, universities, and research institutes around the world.
The department and raises about 10 Million Euro of third-party funding each year.

The department consists of twelve chairs (‘Full Professors’), most of them with an associated research group (‘Associate Professors’). Together with the department of Electrical engineering we host the Center of Excellence for ‘Ultra high-speed Mobile Information and Communication’ (UMIC). In addition we also host the specialized ‘Aachen Institute for Advanced Study in Computational Engineering Science’ (AICES) for doctoral studies. The German Research School for Simulation Sciences is Graduate School jointly managed by RWTH Aachen University and the Forschungszentrum Jülich, for postgraduate education at both Masters and PhD level.

The Bachelor of Science in Informatik is taught in German, and gives our students the basic skills and competencies necessary to solve problems in the field of Computer Science. The three year education is research oriented, and focuses on the necessary foundations like the principles and use of computers, computer engineering, and mathematics. Additionally, elective courses from computer science, as well as an elective subsidiary subject (non computer science), which can both be chosen by the students according to their interests, are included, as is a four-month thesis project.
The bachelor degree enables our students to successfully continue their studies in one of our Masters programs.

As a leading research university, RWTH Aachen University offers numerous opportunities for doctoral studies, either as a research assistant working on challenging projects or as a doctoral student supported, e.g., through a fellowship or scholarship. In addition to supervision, RWTH Informatik
provides structured guidance through focused research schools, each geared towards specific interests. The most important schools are:

If you are interested in fundamentals of computer science and related disciplines, the DFG-funded Doctoral Training Group for Algorithmic Synthesis is a great resource.

If you like mathematics and high-performance computing, the Jülich-Aachen Graduate Research School for Simulation Sciences offers many challenges.

Candidates with an interest to work at the cross-roads of mathematics, computer science, and engineering will meet their peers in the Aachen International Graduate School for Computational Engineering Sciences.

If you are interested in application-oriented IT research, the Bonn-Aachen International Research School on Applied Informatics offers specializations in Media and Human-Computer Interaction, Computer Graphics, Data Mining and Pattern Recognition, Software and Information Engineering, Software for Communication Systems, IT Security, Life Science Informatics, and Formal Foundations.

RWTH Informatics offers unique opportunities to do research across traditional disciplinary boundaries: cooperation with Aachen’s world-leading engineers brings our information and software technologies to the engineering products that have made Germany the world’s leading export nation. The industry competence gained in such projects is an additional plus in the qualification of our graduates. Exemplarily for the range of our research competence three areas are presented:
Excellence in Fundamentals and Software Systems
Basic research is a cornerstone of RWTH Informatik. This may seem unusual for such a practice-oriented department, but only on strong fundamentals can we build future breakthroughs and provide quality assurance in software technology and applications.
Excellence in Information and Communication
Information management, data analysis and future communication technologies go hand in hand in top research activities such as Aachen’s UMIC Excellence Cluster on Mobile Communications, funded directly by the German National Science Foundation DFG.
Excellence in Visualization and Simulation
In addition to theory and experimentation, simulation has become the third pillar of science and engineering. RWTH Informatik has taken a leadership role in high performance simulation and multimedia visualization, not the least through access to some of Europe’s fastest supercomputers in
the Forschungszentrum Jülich.