Just two years after it was founded, the KLU has reached the top tier in the
newly published research rankings for 120 business studies faculties in
Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The newly founded university, with its
small faculty, was able to hold its own against powerful competition with
much larger numbers of professors. In the research performance per
professor ranking, the KLU made it to the Top Ten, coming in seventh, and
with this outstanding result it is on a par with long-established
universities such as Mannheim, Munich and Cologne.
KLU Research Dean Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Sönke Albers was delighted. With an
outstanding ninth place among 2,100 business studies professors, he was
rated one of the most active researchers in the German, Austrian and Swiss
region. "Success in the rankings is no coincidence," he said. "We defined
research as a core task for the KLU from the outset. Unlike many private
universities, we see it not as a superfluous luxury but as a fundamental
prerequisite for first-rate teaching. At the KLU we can offer our professors an
excellent environment thanks to the magnificent support that we receive from
our sponsor, the Kühne Foundation. That is why we are able to attract
researchers of international repute." The KLU's English-language study
programs are geared entirely to international standards and are of interest for
researchers at international universities too. That was why Professor Alan
McKinnon, a Scot who was also awarded a top-flight research rating by
Handelsblatt, moved from Edinburgh to Hamburg. Other faculty colleagues
were recruited from highly reputed institutions such as INSEAD, the Erasmus
University in Rotterdam and the Singapore Management University.
The outstanding Handelsblatt ranking proves just how internationally aligned and
strong the research of the young KLU faculty is. Prof. Dr. Niels van Quaquebeke
is rated one of the best young researchers under the age of forty. "And we are
still only at the beginning of our development," Dean Albers said. "In the years
ahead we aim to stay right on track and move further into the top ranks of
European universities." The KLU's first 23 Master of Science in Global Logistics
graduates also had every reason to be jubilant at their graduation ceremony in
Pressekontakt - Susann Linke - Tel.: +49 (0)40-328 707-150; E-Mail: susann.linke@the-klu.org
Hamburg's Maritimen Museum. KLU sponsor, and guest of honor, Klaus-
Michael Kühne was deeply impressed by the university's pace of development.
A logistics entrepreneur, he has already invested €30 million in setting up and
developing the university in his native Hamburg. He has also ensured longterm
funding of the KLU by the Kühne Foundation.