Medical University of Lusatia Cottbus Launches in 2026 with 36 Places

How many study places does the Medical University of Lusatia have in 2026?

The Medical University of Lusatia – Carl Thiem in Cottbus starts the 2026/27 winter semester with 36 first-year students in human medicine. By 2035 the number is to rise to around 165 a year; when fully built up, the Brandenburg state government gives 200 study places and 80 professorships. Set-up costs to 2038 come to around EUR 3.7 billion.

Source: press release 62/2025 of the Brandenburg Ministry of Finance and for Europe of 20 November 2025, together with information from the Medical University of Lusatia, as of August 2026.

Medschool Experts's own calculation: on 31 December 2025 Brandenburg had exactly 2,551,889 inhabitants (Berlin-Brandenburg Statistical Office, press release of 22 June 2026). The 36 starting places therefore correspond to 1.4 state medical study places per 100,000 inhabitants, and the 200 places when fully built up to 7.8. The nationwide comparison figure is around 12.2 places per 100,000 inhabitants. Adding the 96 places at the private Brandenburg Medical School Theodor Fontane, Brandenburg reaches around 11.6 when fully built up, and therefore almost the national figure.

This calculation shows the order of magnitude without varnish. With Cottbus, Brandenburg is making up a structural deficit it carried as the only large territorial state without its own state university medicine. The road there runs to 2035.

When I tell prospective students about Cottbus, the same hope often comes up: a brand-new location, barely anyone knows it, so less competition. That hope is misplaced. Allocation runs through hochschulstart and therefore from the same nationwide pool as every other state faculty. A new location is not an insider tip, only another entry on the same list.

What is being created in Cottbus, and who runs it?

The Medical University of Lusatia – Carl Thiem was founded on 1 July 2024. The legal basis is the Brandenburg University Medicine Act, which the Brandenburg state parliament passed in June 2024. On the same date, the Carl Thiem Hospital in Cottbus passed from municipal to state ownership and became Brandenburg's first state university hospital.

According to the science ministry in Potsdam, research, teaching and patient care sit within a single legal and organisational unit under joint management. The founding executive board is led by Eckhard Nagel, who is also responsible for patient care. On the academic side, the gerontologist and health services researcher Adelheid Kuhlmey, previously vice-dean at the Charité in Berlin, is responsible for building the institution. The campus lies on Thiemstrasse in the middle of Cottbus and will expand step by step over the coming years.

The road to the institution in fast forward

Preparation took longer than construction. The milestones, according to the Brandenburg science ministry and the institution itself:

• 2019: Brandenburg's governing parties agree on a Lusatia health model region.
• September 2020: Science Minister Manja Schüle appoints an expert commission chaired by Karl Max Einhäupl, the former chairman of the Charité's executive board.
• June 2021: the commission presents its recommendations.
• November 2022: regional health stakeholders sign a memorandum.
• March 2023: the concept goes to the German Science and Humanities Council for assessment.
• 22 April 2024: the Science and Humanities Council presents its opinion (Drs. 1873-24) and recommends starting teaching by the end of 2026.
• June 2024: the state parliament passes the University Medicine Act.
• 1 July 2024: the Medical University of Lusatia – Carl Thiem is founded.
• 20 November 2025: the supervisory board confirms that the criteria for starting teaching in autumn 2026 have been met.

Seven years pass between the first political agreement in 2019 and the first enrolment in 2026. From formal foundation to the first semester it is 27 months. Both figures describe the same process and lead to very different headlines.

What is different about the Cottbus model programme?

The Medical University of Lusatia starts with a model degree programme rather than a classically divided standard programme. According to the state government, the curriculum interlocks scientific fundamentals, clinical theory and clinical practice throughout. Learning is case-based and contact with patients comes early. The thematic priorities are the digitalisation of healthcare and health systems research.

Curricula of this kind are made possible by the model clause in the German medical licensing regulations. One point is frequently misrepresented here: the comprehensive reform of those regulations that has been discussed for years is not in force. The ÄApprO 2002 in its 2023 version still applies. Anyone who reads today that medical education has already been reformed should check the date of the source.

Is there a rural doctor quota in Cottbus?

No, not at the start. The Medical University of Lusatia admits its first cohort in the 2026/27 winter semester without a rural doctor quota. On 10 December 2025 the Deutsches Ärzteblatt reported that the state government is preparing a Brandenburg Rural Doctors Act to reserve ten per cent of study places for later work as a GP in underserved regions.

A closer look is worthwhile here, because the sources appear at first sight to diverge. On its own application page, the Medical University of Lusatia names a rural doctor quota whose details are in preparation. The Deutsches Ärzteblatt, by contrast, wrote in December 2025 that the start would take place without this quota. Both are correct, and the reason is procedural: advance quotas have to precede the regular allocation procedure in time. The state government explained the postponement by saying that there was not enough lead time. The act is coming; the quota simply takes effect later. Anyone applying for the 2026/27 winter semester therefore cannot count on it.

How do you apply to the Medical University of Lusatia?

Applications for human medicine at the Medical University of Lusatia run, as at every state faculty in Germany, through hochschulstart.de. The application deadline for the winter semester is 31 May if the higher-education entrance qualification was obtained before 16 January, otherwise 15 July. For the summer semester the date is 15 January.

The institution stresses that personal strengths, professional experience and social involvement count alongside school results. Specifically it names the top-grades quota, the universities' own selection procedures with aptitude tests such as the Test for Medical Degree Programmes, the consideration of completed vocational qualifications and practical prior experience, and a second-degree quota of three per cent. Applicants without EU or EEA citizenship apply through uni-assist.

Who is financing the build-up of university medicine in Lusatia?

The federal government and the state are financing the build-up of the Medical University of Lusatia jointly. Of around EUR 3.7 billion in set-up costs to 2038, the federal government is contributing more than EUR 1.85 billion from the Coal Regions Structural Strengthening Act, according to the Brandenburg finance ministry on 20 November 2025. The Deutsches Ärzteblatt puts the state's share at EUR 1.8 billion.

In December 2025 the Brandenburg cabinet approved a grant agreement with an investment budget of up to EUR 821 million for the construction projects. What remains open is how ongoing operating finance will look from the mid-2030s, when the structural funds run out. That question will then rest with the state. It is not a peculiarity of Lusatia but a typical constellation for new institutions initially financed from time-limited programmes.

Medschool Experts's own calculation: spreading the EUR 3.7 billion purely arithmetically across the 200 first-year places of the fully built-up institution gives EUR 18.5 million per place. As the price of a study place that figure is useless, because the sum also finances a university hospital, research buildings and around 1,300 posts. But it does make it comprehensible why no federal state can scale up medical capacity at short notice.

How long does it take to build a medical faculty in Germany?

Among the most recent German foundations, seven to ten years typically pass between the political decision and the first enrolment. The frequently cited Cottbus record refers solely to the phase between formal foundation and the first semester, that is to 27 months. A look at comparable locations puts that in context.

Two patterns become visible. New faculties practically never start at full capacity, because staff, teaching buildings, anatomy facilities and academic teaching hospitals have to grow in parallel. And the lead time is enormous: before the first Cottbus cohort holds a medical licence, at least six years and three months of standard study time pass from October 2026. The first specialists from that cohort will be working in the 2040s.

What do 36 places mean for the nationwide capacity bottleneck?

Nationwide in the 2024/25 winter semester, according to the analysis by the Centre for Higher Education Development, around 10,219 medical study places awarded through hochschulstart faced 32,966 applications. The 36 Cottbus places correspond to around 0.35 per cent of that capacity, and the target of 200 places to just under two per cent. In the 2015/16 winter semester there were 9,068 places.

Over nine years, centrally allocated capacity has therefore grown by a good 1,000 places. Including private institutions, the German Medical Faculty Association reckons with around 12,000 first-year students in human medicine a year and puts the total number of medical students at more than 105,000, the highest in the Federal Republic's history. At the same time the association points out that, according to 2019 calculations, a study place in human medicine costs an average of around EUR 240,000, and argues for quality and curriculum development rather than additional places alone.

Medschool Experts's own calculation: the private Brandenburg Medical School Theodor Fontane in Neuruppin trains 96 human medicine students a year by its own account, and records around 700 applications. That is 7.3 applications per place, more than twice the nationwide figure of 3.23 in the central procedure. Expanding capacity lowers that ratio; it does not reverse it.

That is precisely why the route to other European countries remains the faster option for many prospective students. For the 2023/24 winter semester the Centre for Higher Education Development counted at least 8,821 German students of human medicine at foreign institutions, against 103,176 German human medicine students at home. Around one in eleven German medical students is therefore enrolled abroad. The most important destination countries are Austria with 2,563, Hungary with 1,930, Bulgaria with 1,131 and Switzerland with 802 students. About half study on regular national programmes, the other half on purpose-built international programmes.

Which route fits in an individual case – waiting for a place in Germany, preparing for the Test for Medical Degree Programmes, the rural doctor quota or starting a degree elsewhere in the EU – can only be judged individually. At Medschool Experts we have been supporting exactly this decision for years. Anyone who would like their starting position assessed can have a free consultation with us.

How are other countries expanding their medical capacity?

Germany is not the only country reassessing its capacity to train doctors. The answers differ widely: Germany founds new locations, the Netherlands fine-tunes existing faculties, England doubles capacity to a fixed timetable, and Poland and Hungary plan systematically for international students.

Netherlands: fine-tuning instead of new foundations

The Netherlands works with a numerus fixus, that is a fixed number of places per programme and university. For the 2026/27 academic year the official overview from Studiekeuze123 gives a combined 2,724 bachelor's places across the eight medical faculties: Erasmus University Rotterdam and the University of Groningen with 400 each, AMC-UvA and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam with 342 each, Radboud University with 322, Leiden University with 312, Maastricht University with 309 and Utrecht University with 297.

The target figure is recalculated regularly rather than fixed permanently. In its Capacity Plan for 2027 to 2030, published in December 2025, the Capaciteitsorgaan recommended an intake of 3,015 places a year; earlier recommendations were 2,850 in 2019 and 3,330 in 2022. How closely such recommendations are tied to the budget situation was shown by a reduction of 66 places announced by the cabinet, which the medical faculties initially did not implement, according to the university hospital association NFU. What remains notable: with eight faculties and around 17.9 million inhabitants, the Netherlands steers without new foundations, because it adjusts the numbers at existing locations.

United Kingdom: doubling as a programme

England is making the largest planned leap. The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, presented in June 2023, provides for raising the number of medical study places from 7,500 to 10,000 by the 2028/29 academic year and to 15,000 by 2031/32. In parallel, dentistry places are to grow to 1,000 by 2028/29 and more than 1,100 by 2031/32, and GP training places to 6,000 a year. On top of that comes a new training route through medical degree apprenticeships, which began in 2024/25 with 200 pilot places and is to grow to 2,000 students by 2031/32. The plan is backed by additional funding of more than GBP 2.4 billion cumulatively over six years.

England is founding new faculties too. The Three Counties Medical School at the University of Worcester admitted its first cohort in 2023, received an initial 50 state-funded places from September 2024 in October 2023 and twelve more in May 2024, so that 62 fully funded places were available for 2025/26. For context: the House of Commons Library puts the number of medical study places across the whole of the United Kingdom at around 9,500 a year, roughly 2,000 more than in 2013.

Poland and Hungary: expansion through foreign-language programmes

Poland steers capacity annually by ordinance of the health ministry. For the 2026/27 academic year, 10,705 places in human medicine are provided for, after 10,504 in 2025/26, an increase of 1.91 per cent. Of these, 7,133 places are for full-time study in Polish, 1,734 for part-time study in Polish and 1,838 for English-language programmes. Together with dentistry, the quota comes to more than 12,200 places. Poland therefore trains, on paper, more first-year students in human medicine than Germany does through its central allocation, with around 37 million inhabitants.

Hungary has relied on foreign-language programmes for decades. In 2025, Semmelweis University in Budapest saw just under 350 international graduates: 255 from English-language programmes, among them 127 in human medicine, 49 in dentistry, 54 in the health sciences and 25 in pharmacy, plus 92 from German-language programmes, among them 74 in human medicine and 16 in dentistry. That structure explains why Hungary, with 1,930 German medical students, is the second most important destination country after Austria.

This article reflects the state of research as of 14 August 2026 and does not constitute legal advice. Admission rules, quotas and numbers of places may change; the applicable ordinances and university statutes are authoritative.