Friedrich Schiller University of Jena

Friedrich Schiller University Jena, situated in Thuringia's "City of Light" and being one of Germany's oldest research universities, is an integral part of the urban environment. All over the city, there are buildings that belong to the university, as opposed to having a single campus. It has gained a reputation for having an inter-disciplinary outlook on both the humanities and natural sciences, being very rigorous academically, and having an excellent, accommodating, and student-focused atmosphere.

Elector Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous founded the university in 1558 as a successor to the University of Wittenberg, which had closed during the Reformation. The FSU entered its "Golden Age" in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when it became an important centre of German Idealism and Romanticism. Some of the most notable professors during that time have included Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling; and the university's namesake, the poet Friedrich Schiller, was a professor of History. The university was one of the first to support the optical and glass industries in the 19th and early 20th centuries, with the support and collaboration of local innovators such as Carl Zeiss and Otto Schott.