Willy Brandt School of Public Policy at the University of Erfurt

The Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, Germany's oldest public policy school, is situated within its newest public university, the University of Erfurt. Created in 2002 as part of the Faculty of Legal, Social and Economic Sciences, the School has operated since as an interdisciplinary, practice-oriented and international institute of higher education that has been preparing students for the demands and challenges of today's complex political world.

Nearly fourty years ago, Willy Brandt, in his capacity as chair of the North-South Commission, foresaw the emergence of that world and likened it to the ‘rise of a new civilization.’ It would bring with it challenges unprecedented in magnitude and complexity, yet it would also enable new ways of addressing these, based on the heightened awareness of global interconnectedness and the clear-headed confidence in the possibility of collective political action.

The Brandt School’s mission is to capacitate future policy-makers from around the world along these premises. It has done so by combining the time-tested curriculum of the grand North American public policy schools with the distinctive perspective that its location at the very centre of Europe and at the crossing point between West and East, ‘old’ and ‘new’ entails.

The resulting Brandt School approach stands out through its systematic trans-disciplinarity, its comprehensively global focus, and its methodical linking of theory and practice.

It is a setting in which the sort of reflective space required for policy-makers of the future thrives. It is the place to be!