The University of Lübeck comprises the Faculty of Technology and Natural Sciences and the Faculty of Medicine affiliated with a teaching hospital.

Lübeck is well known for its strength in medicine and computer science, which is confirmed in the CHE university ranking. In both 2006 and 2009, the University of Lübeck remains No. 1 in medicine among all universities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In Computer Science and Molecular Life Science, the University was ranked No. 2 in the 2009 evaluation.

Lübeck is also a growing research university. A prime indicator of the research achievements is the fact that Lübeck has won several times the innovation prize for medical technology funded by the BMBF (German Ministry of Education and Research), with the last one in 2008.

With a total investment of around € 2.0 billion from the German federal and state governments, the purpose of the Excellence Initiative is to promote top-level research and to improve the quality of higher education institutions in general, thus making Germany an attractive location of scientific research on a global scale.

As one part of the Excellence Initiative, the university successfully secured funding for the Graduate School for Computing in Medicine and Life Sciences from the DFG. The University of Lübeck is also involved in another Excellence Initiative project, namely the Excellence Cluster in Inflammation at Interfaces (http://www.inflammation-at-interfaces.de/en_startseite.phtml)

The DFG (German Research Foundation) is the central public funding organisation responsible for promoting research in Germany. Its main activities include fostering scientific excellence through competition, advising parliaments on questions relating to science and research, encouraging international collaboration in science and humanities, and supporting the advancement of young researchers.