Horst Hippler receives honorary doctorate from Université de Strasbourg

11. May 2016

Prof. Dr. Horst Hippler, the President of the German Rectors' Conference (HRK), today received an honorary doctorate from the Université de Strasbourg. The honour was conferred by the university's president, Prof. Alain Beretz, who praised Hippler's European commitment.

The current President of the HRK played a vital role in the development of the long established cooperation between the universities in the Upper Rhine region. The universities of Basel, Freiburg, Haute-Alsace and Strasbourg and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, where Hippler was president prior to being appointed HRK President, have been cooperating within the Eucor network (European Confederation of Universities on the Upper Rhine) since the late 1980s. At the end of last year they established the Eucor European Campus with the aim of further strengthening their position as an alliance. The European Campus was formally opened today.

Horst Hippler is also strongly committed to European cooperation and a strong position for German universities in the European Research Area in his role as HRK President.

The University of Strasbourg is one of the most renowned universities in Europe. It was re-founded in 2009 through the union of the universities of Louis Pasteur, Marc Bloch and Robert Schuman and the Institut universitaire de la formation des maîtres, after the three universities had been separated in the 1970s.