Compulsory study information days and self-assessment for course orientation, international orientation through English-language Master's courses and extensive exchange programme; small groups for practicals and tutorials; as a complement to subject-specific course guidance, the RWTH enables students to receive close and long-term support in special study situations; early integration of students into research groups, e.g. as "science assistants".

Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet, Norwegen; University of Alberta, Kanada; Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal; Grenoble INP, Frankreich; Università degli Studi di Parma, Italien; Institut de Ciències Fotòniques ("ICFO"), Spanien; Univerzita Karlova v Praze, Tschechien; Universidad de Valencia, Spanien; University of California, Davis, USA; National Chiao Tung University, China

Access to equipment at the Research Centre Jülich (supercomputers, accelerator); Grid computer cluster with 5350 CPUs and four petabyte of hard drive space; Centre for Electron Microscopy. Access to the Helmholtz Nanofacility (1000m2 clean room facility) at the Research Centre Jülich and to the Central Laboratory for Micro and Nanotechnology in collaboration with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering.

International orientation of the research groups: international collaborations and close cooperation with the Forschungszentrum (FZ) Jülich within the Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA), especially within JARA-FIT, JARA-FAME and JARA- and close cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology and AMO GmbH. International and national collaborative projects such as EU flagship projects, BMBF research focus, DFG graduate colleges, DFG special research areas, excellence cluster ML4Q together with the universities of Cologne and Bonn and the FZ Jülich.

The Department of Physics uses the RWTH Innovation Entrepreneurship Centre as a central transfer structure for strategic cooperation with companies, technology scouting, IP transfer and start-up consulting. This integrative approach now serves as a blueprint for teaching entrepreneurial thinking and action to students interested in founding companies and getting them excited about business start-ups. In this way, deep-tech start-ups are to be created in the future which will support technology-based structural change and create numerous jobs in the long term.