Historical Background
The University of Karlsruhe was founded as Polytechnische Schule, a polytechnical school, on 7 October 1825. It was modeled upon the École polytechnique in Paris. In 1865, Grand Duke Frederick I of Baden (German: Friedrich) raised the school to the status of a Hochschule, an institution of higher education. Since 1902 the university has also been known as the Fridericiana in his honour.
In 1885, the institution was renamed a Technische Hochschule, Institute of Technology, and in 1967 it became an Universität, a full university, entailing the right to award regular doctorate degrees. Nevertheless, in 1899 all technical universities, therefore including the University of Karlsruhe, were granted the right to award doctorate degrees for engineering identified as Dr. Ing.
The University of Karlsruhe has been one of the leading German institutions in computer science. A central computer laboratory was founded in 1966. The department of informatics was established three years later along with the possibility to study informatics in a regular course. On 2 August 1984, the university received Germany's first email.
On 6 April 2006, a contract for the foundation of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) was signed by Professor Horst Hippler and Dr. Dieter Ertmann from the University of Karlsruhe, and Professor Manfred Popp and Assistant Jur. Sigurd Lettow from Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe. The name was selected to emulate the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the leading technical university in the United States.
In 2008, Hans-Werner Hector, SAP Co-Founder, raised a 200 million euros fund to support excellent researchers within the university. Interestingly, Hans-Werner Hector is the only founder of SAP who did not graduate regularly at the University of Karlsruhe but was given an honorary doctorate degree for his support of intellectually gifted children in 2003.
The first step to bring together the university and the research center was already made in 1985, when the Institut für Meteorologie und Klimaforschung (Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research) was founded. Both institutes, the university and the research center were merged. The university and the research center have always cooperated but the cooperation increased by July 2006 when the KIT was formally founded. The main reason for establishing the KIT was the participation of the university of Karlsruhe in the German Universities Excellence Initiative, including the chance to get a maximum grant of 50 million euros p.a. from the Excellence Initiative. It lost this position in the 2012 round of the Excellence Initiative.
In February 2008, the merger of the University of Karlsruhe and the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe forming the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology was agreed upon by the state Baden-Württemberg and the federal German government. The corresponding state law was passed on 8 July 2009. KIT was formally established on 1 October 2009.
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