Currently, more than 36,000 full-time students are studying at HHU and a total staff of approximately 3,600 people (academic and non-academic).

The city's first real university, however, was only founded in 1965 by adding a combined Faculty of Natural Sciences–Arts and Humanities to the existing medical one.

[failed verification] In its university library function, it collects, archives and cares for scientific resources.

[3] As a central unit and (multi) media centre of HHU, the ZIM provides competencies and services in the field of digital information delivery and processing.

The Botanical Garden of Düsseldorf is a scientific institution of HHU, which cultivates about 6,000 different kinds of plants from all around the globe.

in European Studies, a unique one-year English-taught course especially designed for exceptional graduates from universities in Israel, Palestine and Jordan.

The German-French master programme Media Culture Analysis / Analyse de Pratiques Culturelles, enables students to obtain a double diploma of both the HHU and the University of Nantes.

At doctoral level the academy of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, PhilGrad, offers a broad range of counselling and career-relevant courses.

Among the research hubs in the faculty are linguistics (CRC 991), politics (Research Unit 1381), ancient history (funded by the NRW Academy for the Arts and Sciences), the history of art, and editing studies (complete works editions of Max Weber and Martin Buber in progress).

[8] HHU's second largest faculty offers its approximately 6,500 students (winter semester 2011/12) ten basic programmes (B.A.

Special programmes such as the four-year "bachelor plus", in which students spend one year at Michigan State University in East Lansing or at the University of Western Australia in Perth, and the international MSc in Biology enable students to gain international experience.

The faculty has institutionalised support for doctoral studies in the form of iGRAD, the Interdisciplinary Graduate and Research Academy Düsseldorf to establish network structures and offer counselling and training services for doctoral students, supervisors and research training groups.

[9] Further backing for structured doctorates provide the following programmes: RTG 1203 Dynamics in Hot Plasms (DFG), Graduate Cluster CLIB, NRW Research Academy Biostruct, RTG "Molecules of Infection" (Manchot Foundation), the international graduate school iGRAD-Plant in collaboration with the Forschungszentrum Jülich and Michigan State University, US; and the internally funded initiatives vivid, e-norm, and iGRASPseed.

Further education is provided by the Düsseldorf Business School (DBS), which offers MBA-Programmes against a tuition fee.

University law gives the senate the right to confirm elected rectorate members in their office.

Furthermore, the chancellor's three staff offices are responsible for legal advisory, work safety and protection of the environment, and internal auditing.

Twelve HHU researchers at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences currently have the prestigious ERC Grants.

Its concept to strengthen an entrepreneurial culture at and around HHU was successful in the EXIST competition of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (Germany).

Sports are coordinated by the students' representation (AStA) of Düsseldorf's four higher education institutions in a joint initiative.

Once a year the short film competition for young talents from the region takes place on campus.

Examples are the local UNICEF group, a debating club, the European Student Network and the campus radio.

Since 1989 the Heinrich Heine Guest Lecture has repeatedly drawn high-profile speakers to the university's campus.

New traditions have come to supplement the guest lecture: since 2010 the "University Speech" and since 2011 the "Heinrich Heine Professorship for Business and Economics", both performed by external speakers of high calibre.

As a German public university, HHU receives funding from the Land of North Rhine-Westphalia and therefore does not charge tuition fees.

For example, there are bursary programmes to cover living costs, facilitate stays abroad, or to finish one's final thesis.