• maintaining and developing the high quality teaching and research levels of its faculty members,
• educating students, especially those with an aptitude for science and engineering, to competently meet the challenges of internationally-oriented action and leadership,
• creating and publishing innovative business research results.

Consistent with the objectives and core values elaborated in the Mission Statement of RWTH Aachen University (Senate Resolution of 19.12.96), the Faculty of Business and Economics is guided by the following goals and fundamental beliefs:

• The Faculty aims to provide premium quality teaching by highly competent and optimally qualified staff in the areas of Business and Economics.

• The Faculty aims to produce premium quality research by encouraging its members to submit papers to highly ranked, peer-reviewed journals of Business and Economics.

• The Faculty aims to maintain a balance of pure and applied research via the appropriate selection of its members and via the regularly dissemination of information about new publications of their members’ research in the fields of Business and Economics. 

• The Faculty aims to generate and disseminate scientific innovations in the areas of Business and Economics. It expects that an environment of interdisciplinarity and internationality is highly conducive to such innovations.

• The Faculty aims to employ scientific reasoning as an important way of developing the key competencies of its Business and Economics students, in the firm belief that this will empower students to make good decisions in their future academic or professional careers.

• The Faculty aims to educate those students who are gifted with a particular aptitude for science and engineering, and who are well qualified in mathematics and foreign languages.

1. With regard to its teaching activities, the Faculty of Business and Economics at RWTH Aachen University is committed to empowering graduates of its study programmes to take on the challenges of leadership within companies and institutions, as well as in research and in education. 

The Faculty’s key focus is its business administration programmes and also the industrial engineering programmes, in which it plays a central collaborative role. These programmes will all be offered in the form of Bachelor and consecutive Master degrees following the phasing out of the previous Diplom degree programmes.

Additionally, the Faculty provides a programme of study for intending secondary level II teachers who are specializing in Business and Economics.

With its new MBA programme, the Faculty will engage in the continued education and professional development of future top executives in Germany.

The range of services offered within RWTH Aachen University reflects the growing need for interdisciplinary interplay between research and teaching. Within the framework of its resources, and bearing in mind the objectives and core values of RWTH Aachen University, the Faculty plays its part in this process by providing services for the programmes of study offered by fellow Faculties.

2. Undertaking active research in the sub-disciplines covered by the Faculty is an integral part of the calling of all its members. Acutely aware of the innovative potential of interdisciplinary research, they align their research with international quality standards and publish their findings in top ranking, national and international peer-reviewed journals, and in monographs, and also present these findings at pertinent conferences and seminars. The transferral of research findings into practice is implemented in various ways such as via the provision of continued education courses or participation in company start-ups that promote promising business ideas.

3. The Faculty fully respects the freedom of its scholars to select their own research focuses, whilst encouraging them to meet the needs of business and industry in their research, development and consulting projects.

1. The Faculty fosters a customer-oriented relationship with its students, actively seeking constructive dialogue with them in order to identify strengths and any possible weak areas in its curricula. In keeping with its high standards, the Faculty designs its teaching and examination activities in such a manner that students may move through their studies at a brisk, but thorough, pace.

2. The Faculty is guided by the principle of “A good theory is the best practice”, so the content of teaching activities is firmly anchored in theory and carefully balanced off with empirical research findings. Teaching staff steer their students towards a reflective and methodical approach for tackling their future professional tasks.

Where appropriate, a mathematically analytical approach is adhered to in the Faculty’s teaching practices. This quantitative orientation attracts particularly those students who are suitably talented and motivated. The public relations activities reflect the Faculty’s orientation and requirements, and the Faculty carefully selects its new students accordingly.

The educational goals of the Faculty are that its students will acquire knowledge and methodical and problem-solving competencies whilst developing their personal and social skills and values. They will thus learn how to identify and tackle complex problems, whilst at the same time enhancing their personal self-confidence and exploring new paths, and developing their ability to critically approach both “proven” and new material. Students are motivated to develop their capacity for lifelong learning, to enhance their self-sufficiency and to shoulder responsibility whilst communicating and collaborating with others and, last but not least, to develop a sensitivity to other cultural beliefs and values. To facilitate this last goal, the Faculty encourages its students to spend part of their studies abroad.

3. Within the scientific community, the Faculty aspires to maintain its position as a leader in teaching and research, with particular emphasis on the area of International Supply Chain Management. The Faculty believes that it appeals to young scientists as an attractive place of education and research. Its academic staff appointment policy strives to attract and retain only the brightest minds.

4. The Faculty endeavours to maintain recognition by business and industry both as an attractive institution for the direct recruitment of highly qualified new professionals, and as a partner for finding scientific solutions to their complex problems. The Faculty enters into appropriate recruitment partnerships with its partners and, in reciprocation, expects its partners to provide support in the form of internships. These are imperative for facilitating the transition of Bachelor graduates in particular into the professional world.