Second place in the German Startup Monitor 2026: University of Cologne remains Germany's top-ranked non-technical university for start-ups

The University of Cologne produces a particularly large number of company founders – true in 2026 as in previous years. That's the finding of the German Startup Monitor 2026, published on Monday, the annual analysis by the German Startups Association. The University of Cologne secures second place among the most start-up-friendly universities for the second year running, and even improves its score slightly compared to last year. This makes it once again Germany's most start-up-friendly non-technical comprehensive university. Only RWTH Aachen produces more founders.

The DSM also shows that universities and research institutions are doing a good job supporting founders: every second start-up was supported by a university or research institution. 70 percent of these founders say this support was important or very important.

Professor Dr. Joybrato Mukherjee, Rector of the University of Cologne, says:
"As a university, we don't just want to generate scientific knowledge – we want to create impact with it in business and society. Founding companies is an important way to do that: it brings new ideas into practice and creates solutions to real-world challenges. We're delighted that so many founders have taken their academic path at the University of Cologne, and it confirms our commitment to consistently strengthening transfer and entrepreneurial thinking."

Achievements like this are only possible because our Rectorate has anchored transfer and entrepreneurship centrally in the university's strategy – thank you for that. Equally, we thank the Gateway Hochschulen Köln – TH Köln, German Sport University Cologne, Rheinische Hochschule Köln and CBS International Business School – for the excellent collaboration.