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The Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) was founded over 40
years ago as part of a plan to push ahead structural change
in the region. One of the tasks of the RUB was to help release
the region from its monoculture of the mining and steel industry
by introducing research, teaching, and knowledge transfer.
The Ruhr region was Germany's most important industrial centre
and dominated by coal and steel works and provided hundreds
of thousands of jobs from the mid-nineteenth century. Villages
and towns exploded by 20 and even 30 times their size in only
a very few decades. The Ruhr became a melting pot for immigrant
labour from Poland, Silesia, and other eastern regions. Combined
with German imperialism before WWI the Ruhr became the country's
armory and remained as such until the end of WWII. The coal
and steel crisis that emerged after 1957 revealed the weaknesses
of the region.
The opening of the Ruhr-Universität in 1965 was heralded
as the start of structural change and from the start the University
was tightly integrated into the region and accepted this responsibility.
The RUB opened up higher educational opportunities for the
working class and created institutes for research and teaching
including the Centre for Interdisciplinary Regional Studies (ZEFIR), the Institute for Social Movements (ISB), and
the Library of the Ruhr.
A pioneering step was taken in 1975 with the founding of "UniKontakt",
the first bureau for knowledge transfer at a German university.
The idea of UniKontakt was to bring small and medium-scale
businesses into contact with research. The bureau has become
a model for other universities. Since 1998 it has become an
independent enterprise - rubitec GmbH. rubitec markets and
patents successful innovations and discoveries made at the
RUB.
Academics at the Ruhr-Universität are developing an educational
monitor for the region with the idea to radically improve
the educational structure of the region. And many RUB academics
work with and in institutions in the region; and of course
the RUB works closely together with other Ruhr universities
and has the political support of the state government.
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