What is today the responsibility of universities required a law in the 1970s: on 29 March 1974, the promulgation of the law on the establishment of a faculty of economics and management at the Technical University of Hannover laid the foundation for today’s Faculty of Economics and Management at Leibniz University Hannover (LUH). The faculty grew quickly and has now been housed at the Conti Campus for 30 years.
Numerous faculty members, alumni and guests celebrated the faculty’s fiftieth birthday at a ceremony on 10 April. Alongside welcoming remarks from representatives from the Ministry of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony and the city of Hannover, the main speaker, Dr. Ruth Brand, president of the Federal Statistical Office of Germany and faculty alumna, gave a speech titled “Democracy needs data”. Prof. Dr. Emeritus Lothar Hübl, former dean of the Department of Economics and Management and retired rector of the University of Hannover, took a journey back to the past in his presentation “The situation of university studies in the 1970s”. Prof. Dr. Volker Epping, president of LUH, and Prof. Dr. Maik Dierkes, dean of the faculty, also outlined the faculty’s situation in the past and today from their perspectives. Martina Dannenbring, an employee in the Dean of Studies Office, and students Ana-Lena Bode and Madita Kölbel also shared their views on the faculty.
The subject area has a long tradition in Hannover. Individual lectures on economics and management were offered in 1872 at the Polytechnic College of Hannover. In 1974, the Faculty of Economics and Management started out with 170 students at what was then the Technical University of Hannover. It grew very quickly: the initial expectation was 600 to 700 students, but the actual number exceeded this within only a few years after the faculty was founded. At the beginning, the faculty was housed at the so-called secondary location on Wunstorfer Straße. This was supplemented by the renting of additional rooms, until 30 years ago the state of Lower Saxony purchased the former administrative building of Continental AG and the faculty moved into what had previously been the management wing there.
The Faculty of Economics and Management in Hannover was one of the first economics and management faculties in Germany to offer a combination of business administration and management. It was extremely important to the founding generation to unite both subdisciplines in one degree programme. Many renowned professors from the early period remained connected with LUH for many years, in some cases in positions with far-reaching roles – for example, Prof. Dr. Lothar Hübl, Prof. Dr. Ursula Hansen and Prof. Dr. Arnold Picot.
Today, 25 professors and approximately 120 doctoral candidates carry out research and teaching in 21 institutes. More than 16,000 graduates have completed their studies here, and approximately 800 have completed doctoral studies. In 2023, the faculty taught approximately 3,500 students in the degree programmes Economics and Management, Engineering and Business Administration, and Industrial Science. The research programmes are Financial Markets and the Global Challenges; Health and Population; and Sustainable Globalisation: Environment, Trade, Migration and Development. The faculty is very well networked both nationally and internationally.
There is a great deal of interplay between the research activities and teaching, and the goal is high-quality teaching based on scientific knowledge. Even in the bachelor's degree programmes it is possible to focus more deeply on specialisations, which can then be pursued further in a master's degree programme. The master's degree programmes also include a programme offered completely in English. The degree programmes cover all of the important areas of business administration, economics, statistics and empirical economics research.
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