OpenFieldFernUniversität in Hagen is Germany's only state-funded distance-education research university, founded in 1974. With over 70,000 students, full doctoral and habilitation granting rights, and regional study centers across Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Europe, FernUni Hagen is a powerhouse in theoretical computer science, mathematics, economics, psychology, and law.
Review checked academic pathways and funding options below:
Three-to-four year salaried doctoral position in the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, researching algorithmic complexity, parameterized algorithms, and computational logic.
DAAD-funded completion grant supporting international doctoral candidates during the final writing and defense phase of their doctoral dissertation.
State-accredited master's program providing advanced specialization in distributed systems, software verification, compiler construction, and database theory.
Scientific research assistantship contributing to knowledge representation, semantic web ontologies, and belief revision algorithms within the Knowledge-Based Systems research group.
Six-month practicum at the Center for Learning and Innovation (ZLI), designing adaptive AI tutoring tools and scalable digital testing systems for over 70,000 students.
Two-year postdoctoral research appointment investigating lattice-based post-quantum cryptographic primitives, homomorphic encryption, and secure multiparty computation.
Interdisciplinary master's degree preparing analysts in stochastic modeling, financial mathematics, linear and nonlinear optimization, and algorithmic game theory.
Tuition is largely free of tuition fees in accordance with German public university law. Students pay only a modest course material fee (Materialbezugsgebühr) of approximately €11 per ECTS credit plus a semester administrative fee of €60. Salaried doctoral positions (Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter) receive standard TV-L E13 salaries (€50,000–€55,000/year gross).
Distinguished researchers and laboratory heads at FernUniversität in Hagen:
Professor of Applied Computer Science & Formal Methods · Petri Nets, Business Process Modeling, Formal Verification, Concurrency Theory
Professor of Discrete Mathematics & Optimization · Matroid Theory, Graph Coloring, Combinatorial Optimization, Network Flows
Honorary Professor of Information Engineering & Artificial Intelligence · Belief Revision, Probabilistic Reasoning, Non-Monotonic Logic, Knowledge Representation
Facts reflect official FernUniversität in Hagen documentation reviewed 2026-10-15. Degree admissions, scholarship awards, and employment positions are subject to formal university review. OpenField does not charge students application fees.
Reviewed 2026-10-15 · Editorial standards · Report an issue