The history of Cognitive Science in Osnabrück

Key research areas

The IKW's research focuses primarily on questions relating to higher cognitive functions – on the one hand as interdisciplinary basic research with an interest in comprehensive scientific knowledge that transcends traditional disciplines, but at the same time with the aim of developing technologies that can be used to tackle the challenges of the modern information society in a competent and innovative manner (more about it in  Research).

Institute & its Professors over time

The interdisciplinary Institute for Cognitive Science (IKW) was established in June 2001 and officially inaugurated in November 2002. It emerged from the Institute for Semantic Information Processing, which was established in 1993.

The institute includes the following professorships:

  • Biologisch orientierte Computer Vision: Prof. Dr. Gunther Heidemann (2024†)
  • Computational Neuroscience: Prof. Dr. Sebastian Musslick
  • Computerlinguistik: Prof. Dr. Peter Bosch (2016†)
  • Ethik der KI:  Prof. Dr. Rainer Mühlhoff
  • Kognitive Modellierung: Prof. Dr. Lilian Weber (seit 2025), vorher:  Prof. Dr. Michael Franke
  • Künstliche Intelligenz: Prof. Dr. Kai-Uwe Kühnberger
  • Maschinelles Lernen:  Prof. Dr. Tim Kietzmann
  • Maschinelle Sprachverarbeitung:  Prof. Dr. Elia Bruni
  • Neurobiopsychologie: Prof. Dr. Peter König
  • Neuroinformatik: Prof. Dr. Gordon Pipa (seit 2010), vorher:  Prof. Dr. Martin Riedmiller
  • Philosophie der Kognition: Prof. Dr. Achim Stephan (Emeritus seit 2024)
  • Philosophie des Geistes: Prof. Dr. Sven Walter
  • Psycho-/Neurolinguistik: Prof. Dr. Nicole Gotzner (seit 2022), vorher  Prof. Dr. Jutta L. Mueller
  • Vergleichende Kognitionsbiologie: Dr. rer. nat. Simone Pika

What are the features of the Bachelor's, Master's, and PhD programs?

The Bachelor, Master and PhD programs in Osnabrück are the first substantial Cognitive Science programs offered in Germany. Within the largely method-oriented six-semester Bachelor Program, students will be able to obtain a "Bachelor of Science" in Cognitive Science. The four-semester Master Program treats phenomenological areas of cognition theoretically, empirically and by way of implementation. At the end of the Master Program, the students can obtain a "Master of Science" degree in Cognitive Science. The PhD Program is a curricular program enabling students to achieve a "Ph.D in Cognitive Science" within three years. Doctorate students carry out independent research in promising and highly active areas of Cognitive Science.

Being an international course of study advertised and supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and supported by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Technology (BMBF), Cognitive Science aims at attracting an equal number of German and foreign students, employs the Bachelor and Master degrees, and the ECTS credit system which make the program internationally comparable . The language of instruction is English. Foreign students who wish to study in Germany are given an opportunity to do so, while at the same time the course of study covers an obvious need in Germany.

The methodological approach of Cognitive Science clearly reveals the interdisciplinary heritage of the subject: Cognitive Science combines the humanistic and analytical methods of the arts and the formal sciences (e.g. theoretical linguistics) with the scientific, experimental approaches of psychology and neuroscience, as well as with the synthetic and constructive techniques of computer science. A case in point is natural language understanding: Based on linguistic theories of grammar, it tests psycholinguistic hypotheses of human language processing by means of experiment. Furthermore, it leads to the development of simulation models with the help of programming techniques derived from computational linguistics and based on results obtained by artificial intelligence ("cognitive modelling").

Considering the fact that particularly German Cognitive Science is still characterized by a separation into various camps of "cognitive modellists", "experimentalists" and "neuroscientists", it is of great importance to the new course of study and highly advantageous to the course profile to focus on the mutual complementation and possible integration of these approaches. The study programs aim comprise the acquisition of methodological and practical competence in

  • computer science and mathematics (especially: algorithms and programming languages; formal languages; mathematical foundations of cognitive science; artificial intelligence, including knowledge representation,
  • learning, planning, multiagent systems)
  • psychology (especially: methodology of empirical research; cognitive psychology; personality psychology, behavioral psychology; developmental psychology; neuropsychology)
  • neuroscience and biology (especially: imaging methods; neurobiology; neuroanatomy; neuroethology; neurocomputing)
  • linguistics and psycholinguistics (especially: lexicon, syntax, semantics, pragmatics; theory of grammar)
  • philosophy (especially: philosophy of mind; theory of knowledge, theory of science, philosophical logic; ethics)

In addition, the Master Program includes specialization with regard to the contributing disciplines or the central questions of Cognitive Science. It also places emphasis on integration and practice of the analysis and modelling of cognitive systems through project-related work (obligatory participation in a one-year students' project).