Freie Universitat Berlin is one of the leading universities in Germany and distinguishes itself through its modern and international character. In university rankings Freie Universitat places among the best universities. According to the internationally relevant ranking of The Times Higher Education Supplement, the humanities at Freie Universitat are the best in Germany. The Funding Rankings of the German Research Foundation DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemein- schaft) place the humanities at Freie Universitat in first place and the natural sciences in fourth place.

Freie Universitat is also one of the largest universities in Germany, offering degree courses in about 100 subjects for 34,000 students – of whom 15 per cent come from other countries. For many foreign scholars, such as fellows of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Freie Universitat is the university of preference for their stay in Germany.

Without including Medicine, Freie Universitat is currently lead university for seven collaborative research centers of the German Research Foundation DFG and also has four DFG research units. In addition, because of the wide variety of subjects it offers, Freie Universitat has three collaborative research centers in the humanities and social sciences. Fourteen scholars of Freie Universitat have to date been awarded a Leibniz Prize of the DFG, the most important German prize for research achievements. With the amount of 60 million euros of external funding acquired each year, Freie Universitat canvasses a significant proportion of its income from third-party funds.