In order to study as an exchange student at Mercator School of Management, please apply first through your home university.

After the nomination (deadline May 1st/November 1st) please follow the instructions on the website of our central International Office (central IO).

The central IO is the central service office for international contacts of the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE). To get in touch with the team please use the contact information on their website. The central IO offers support and guidance for international students, post-graduates and other applicants who are interested in our courses of studies at UDE. They especially advise them on matters of application and enrolment, and they are in charge of all matters concerning the admission of international students.

If there is no student exchange agreement between your home institution and Mercator School of Management, you can apply as a “freemover”. Please find more information on this website.

Please note that the university itself does not run any halls of residence. The student residence halls in Duisburg and Essen are administered by the Studierendenwerk (a student welfare services organisation). The application for the student residences has to be made in advance and can only be made by students who are going to study at the University of Duisburg-Essen for at least one semester.

You can find more information about the student residences here and important information by our central IO here.

The Mercator School of Management (MSM) is the Business Faculty of the University of Duisburg-Essen, situated on Duisburg campus. MSM was founded in 2005 as a successor of the former Faculty of Business Administration and Economics. Based on the model of US-American business schools, MSM strives to operate on an international level by combining profound research practices with a high applicability in the real world. Mercator’s strong focus on research, combined with quality education, guarantees Mercator a rank among the leading Business faculties in Germany.

Beyond the boundaries of Duisburg, the MSM is renowned for its research-based teaching. Considering the rating in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings citation index from 2021, the University of Duisburg-Essen ranks sixth in Germany. In the Times Higher Education Young University Ranking 2021, the University of Duisburg-Essen was ranked 18th worldwide. MSM is accredited by the German AQAS and a valid member of AACSB since 2013. Currently, the MSM is hosting 24 tenured professors, and around 95 academic staff members. The faculty possesses the right to confer doctoral degrees (PhDs) in Business Administration, as well as professorships.
Currently, around 2,500 students pursue a bachelor’s or master’s degree at MSM. MSM's bachelor's and master's programs, in particular the thematically broad master's in Accounting and Finance or Management and Economics with strong international roots, but also the more specialized master's programs in Finance and Data Analytics, Internal Auditing and Artificial Intelligence, Supply Chain Management and Logistics or Sustainability Management and Reporting, represent attractive courses in highly relevant topics for future managers.

Mercator Factsheet 

Mercator Factsheet ERASMUS 

Information about Duisburg - City of water and fire

Admission Information 2024

Health Insurance 2024

Our Course Catalogue includes a variety of lectures and seminars taught in English language. The courses (Bachelor and Master level) are open to all exchange students visiting Duisburg as guests of the Mercator School of Management.

At Mercator School of Management, the majority of lectures is taught in German and therefore unsuitable for most visiting international students. However, exchange students can attend all lectures (taught in English and German) that are offered by Mercator School of Management. A good command of German is required for attending lectures taught in German langauge.

Please find our semester dates here.

In general, there are no tuition fees at the University of Duisburg-Essen - this applies for international students as well. All students are, however, subject to a student body and social contribution fee. The social contribution has to be paid each semester and is used to finance the semesterticket, the student welfare contribution for the student service and the student self-administration. 

All students have to pay this so-called “semester contribution” (Sozial- und Studierendenschaftsbeitrag), which amounts ~ 302€ at present. This contribution is not a tuition fee, but is used to support student bodies and pay for the semester ticket (public transport in Germany).

Please note that we can only accept students for the regular semester exchange on a tuition waiver basis.

Interested students from our partner institutions are invited to contact us for further information about the exchange conditions and agreements.

Please find our arrival guide here.

Getting used to living in a foreign country and studying at another university can be difficult sometimes and it might bring some challenges! Therefore, you will get a student buddy who can provide one-to-one support, particularly in the first weeks after your arrival.

Report by Esra Yilmaz

Studying abroad can be considered as a toilsome issue and I should admit that this is true! At the same time it is the unique experience to discover other cultures deeply as a student and gain important benefits!
First of all, I would like to talk about the UDE and my lectures because I spent the biggest part of my exchange period at the university.
When I was preparing my Learning Agreement, I was quite surprised because there were a lot of Asian lectures on the course catalog and they were not quite related with my own major and I had no prior knowledge about east Asia studies. However, I took some Asia classes here and my all perspectives have changed a lot and now I am quite interested in Asian culture.
The classes at the Mercator School of Management will challenge you; in a good sense of education. You have to think out of the box and you will gain so much knowledge from cognate disciplines as well.
I took business and language lectures and they did not give me boring or only theoretical, but very practical information. I learned many important things about business and strategies.

I was living in a dormitory which was within walking distance to the university, main train station and the city centre. I believe that living in the dormitory is the best option for an exchange student to get in contact with others. Since most of exchange students are living in the dorms it is super easy to get together, and to get a chance to make close friendships.
During my exchange I met many international students and we had so much fun together! We were able to have dorm parties and all of them were so much fun! We were preparing some traditional meals from our home countries and cultures; we were playing some games and trying to learn traditional dances! I definitely felt the real souls of those cultures, besides I was able to ask the questions about foods, dances, eating habits in person.. I am pretty sure that we will always keep in touch because we shared thousands of good memories together.

Plus, in Germany, there are lots of carnivals you can attend and have fun with your friends. Cologne Festival was my favourite one for instance! People wear costumes, drink beer and have lots of fun! You will see how German people are creative to design  costumes. I should admit it was one of the best day I have had in Germany.
My favorite one and the best thing about the Europe and especially Germany is the Christmas Market where you can get some delicious foods and drinks like this awesome Glühwein! Each city has its own Christmas Market. I went to those wonderful shiny squares with decorated Christmas trees so many times, and I will definitely come back to visit one of the markets again!

During my exchange, I traveled a lot! Germany is perfectly located and surrounded by many European countries you must see. It is easy and cheap to travel to other countries and I can definitely recommend France, Netherlands, Slovakia, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. When you are enrolled to the UDE, you get a semester transportation ticket which you can use all around the North-Rhein Westfalen state. NRW is one of the biggest states of Germany and it consists of many big cities such as Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Aachen, Münster, Duisburg, Essen.. If you would like to go to Belgium you can use your semester ticket until the border station, and you can buy a ticket from that station! That way, the distance will become narrow and you will pay less! Let me give an example, if you use your ticket’s advantages it costs around 8 euro to go to Brussels from Aachen Bahnhof.

As a conclusion, I discovered new strengths and challenges and they helped me to develop my personal skills.  My coordinator and my buddy always supported me, they tried to solve my problems immediately and I owe them lots of thanks.

Germany has been sehr gut to me! I even met my best friend here; a Korean girl from Chung-Ang University. She has already visited me in my home country and I will visit her in Seoul one day!

At first when I came to Germany, I was a representative of my home country but now I will represent Germany as best as I can do. I feel so lucky about my exchange in Germany. I know that was a turning point in my life. I got incomparable opportunities  which have changed all my perspectives. A bee needs a rich forest to make  honey and for an exchange student, Germany is a rich forest I can say!

This is written by Esra Yılmaz.