New University Medical Centre Oldenburg and the European Medical School Model

How many study places does University Medicine Oldenburg have in autumn 2026?

For the winter semester 2026/27, Oldenburg University will admit 200 first-year students to human medicine for the first time. The European Medical School Oldenburg-Groningen started in 2012 with 40 places; that rose to 80 from the winter semester 2019/20, and to 120 from the winter semester 2022/23. The state of Lower Saxony pledged €125 million through 2028 for this expansion in June 2024.

The four expansion stages at a glance:

Own compilation by Medschool Experts, as of August 2026, based on information from Oldenburg University, the German Science Council's report of July 2019, and the state of Lower Saxony's announcement of 24 June 2024.

Our own calculation at Medschool Experts: the €125 million pledged by Lower Saxony through 2028 covers 80 additional first-year places a year – around €1.56 million per additional place. About €31 million of that goes towards a new research and teaching building; according to the state, most of the remainder flows as compensation payments to the partner hospitals where students complete their clinical training.

In my consultations, the same question comes up almost every time at this point: does a new site improve my chances of a place? I'd rather give a direct answer than a comforting one. Nationwide, 80 additional places are less than one percent of total capacity. For the north-west region, the expansion matters a great deal; for an individual applicant's personal odds, it barely moves the needle.

What did the 13 August 2026 groundbreaking in Oldenburg set in motion?

On 13 August 2026, the first of three construction phases for University Medicine Oldenburg began. This first phase covers 4,000 square metres of floor space for research and anatomy, costs €85 million (of which the university contributes €18 million), and is due for completion in mid-2030. Two further phases follow through the mid-2030s.

• First construction phase: 4,000 square metres for research and anatomy, €85 million, completion mid-2030.
• Second construction phase: 3,400 square metres of research building, €76 million, construction 2029 to 2032.
• Third construction phase: 5,400 square metres for teaching and a cafeteria, €77 million, opening mid-2030s.

That's around €238 million and just under 12,800 square metres in total. Alongside Falko Mohrs and Hans Gerd Nothwang, those present at the groundbreaking included Vice-President Jörg Stahlmann, anatomy professor Anja Bräuer, Mayor Jürgen Krogmann and Cedric Strüver of the State Building Authority. The timeline says a lot about university construction in Germany: anyone starting in autumn 2026 will sit their final state examination before the third construction phase is even open.

Our own calculation at Medschool Experts: spreading the €238 million construction budget purely arithmetically across the 200 first-year places works out to €1.19 million per place. That figure doesn't work as a genuine price tag for a study place, since two of the three buildings are mainly for research. But it does show the scale a state has to plan for when expanding medical education.

How does the European Medical School Oldenburg-Groningen work?

The European Medical School Oldenburg-Groningen is a model degree programme in human medicine under Section 41 of the Licensing Regulations for Physicians, run jointly by Oldenburg University and the University of Groningen. According to Oldenburg University, the cooperation agreement dates from July 2012 and was renewed in July 2019. The first cohort began in the winter semester 2012/13.

According to the faculty's own account in the GMS Journal for Medical Education (2019), the degree is structured in two three-year phases. Each academic year consists of four ten-week modules. Foundational subjects and clinical content run alongside each other throughout, rather than in separate blocks. Four longitudinal strands run through the entire degree: communication, clinical examination, academic work, and professional development. There are also patient seminars from the first semester, six weeks of outpatient placements in the first three years, and a research curriculum starting in the first year.

The clinical model also departs from the usual German pattern. Oldenburg hasn't set up a legally independent university hospital; instead, it integrates the city's existing hospitals into teaching and research through framework agreements, including Klinikum Oldenburg, the Evangelical Hospital and Pius Hospital. That's exactly why most of the €125 million goes as compensation to these hospitals.

Do Oldenburg medical students have to spend a year in Groningen?

The published concept for the model programme provides for Oldenburg students to spend at least one academic year at the University of Groningen, with the timing set individually. Oldenburg University now describes the stay as an exchange with several flexible options. What's always binding is the current version of the study and examination regulations.

The scale of this stay abroad depends on cohort size. The programme has grown from 40 to 200 places between 2012 and 2026, while the University of Groningen itself allocates 400 study places a year. Anyone applying should therefore ask the faculty directly about the Groningen component before enrolling, rather than relying on older publications.

The dual degree remains unchanged: students who meet the requirements can earn Dutch qualifications alongside the German state examination – the Bachelor of Human Life Sciences and the Master in Geneeskunde.

How does Oldenburg University allocate its medical study places?

Oldenburg University allocates all first-semester study places in human medicine through the Foundation for University Admissions (hochschulstart). Ahead of the main quotas, up to 20 percent go through pre-allocation quotas, including 12 places under the rural-doctor quota. The rest is split between the top-grades quota, the university's own selection process, and the additional aptitude quota.

• Pre-allocation quotas of up to 20 percent, including 5 percent for applicants from abroad, 3 percent for a second degree, 2 percent for hardship cases, and 12 study places under the rural-doctor quota.
• Of the remaining places, 30 percent through the top-grades quota, 60 percent through the university's own selection process, and 10 percent through the additional aptitude quota.
• In the university's own selection process, criteria include the entrance qualification, results in the Test for Medical Studies, vocational training, and service or distinctions. In the additional aptitude quota, the test, relevant vocational training, and service are weighted at 30, 45 and 25 percent respectively.

The Test for Medical Studies is optional in Oldenburg and, according to the university, can only improve an applicant's chances. For the programme's binational character, that means selection follows German law strictly, while study still takes place, by design, on both sides of the border.

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How much do 200 places in Oldenburg change the overall application picture in Germany?

In the winter semester 2024/25, Germany had around 10,219 first-year human medicine places against 32,966 applications, according to the Centre for Higher Education Development (DatenCHECK 8/2025, 20 August 2025). Oldenburg's 200 places amount to just under two percent of that total supply; the 80 newly created places, around 0.8 percent.

Our own calculation at Medschool Experts: 32,966 applications for 10,219 places works out to 3.23 applications per place. Add 80 places while demand stays the same, and that ratio falls to 3.20. Capacity policy plays out over decades; an application is decided in a single summer. That's not an argument against expansion – just a sense of scale.

Counted across the whole academic year, including intakes for the summer semester, the Medical Faculty Association counted a total of 12,027 study places at state faculties in 2024. Private universities, with just under 1,500 first-year students a year, allocate their own places and aren't included in that figure. The association expects the total to rise to around 13,000 places by 2030.

If you'd like to know which combination of a German application and a European study route fits your situation, you can always get a free consultation.

What does the research on cross-border medical curricula show?

Binational medical degree programmes are their own field of research. Waterval and colleagues analysed three cross-border curriculum partnerships in BMC Medical Education in 2018, drawing on 361 responses from around 740 students. Satisfaction was high, with student-centred teaching formats and the international profile valued most.

The points of criticism are more interesting. Respondents cited language barriers with local patients, and 42 percent said they missed content on the host country's healthcare system. Writing in the same journal in 2023, Marjo Wijnen-Meijer of the Technical University of Munich describes the internationalisation of medical training as contributing to problem-solving, collaboration and intercultural competence, but notes that international experience hasn't so far been equally available to all students. In 2025, Edwards and colleagues published a systematic review of transnational medical programmes in Medical Education.

The message across this body of work is consistent: a change of location during a degree works when language and the host system are planned for from the start. That's exactly what separates a planned period abroad from an improvised one. Erasmus+ shows how normal mobility has become: according to the European Commission's annual report, almost 1.5 million people completed an Erasmus+ mobility in 2024, with an annual budget of €4.7 billion and more than 34,400 funded projects.

Why is a medical degree from another EU country recognised?

Directive 2005/36/EC on the recognition of professional qualifications governs automatic recognition in Article 21: anyone holding a qualification listed in Annex V has that qualification recognised in other member states without the training content being reassessed. Article 24 requires at least five years of study and at least 5,500 hours of theoretical and practical training for this.

I went through this process myself. I completed my dentistry degree in Sofia from 2015 to 2021, and recognition for practice in Switzerland went through the national Swiss recognition procedure. What surprised me most at the time: what got checked was paperwork, deadlines, proof of language proficiency and fees – not the content of my degree. That's precisely the point of the Directive. It replaces case-by-case content review with a shared minimum standard.

The same framework underpins the Oldenburg model. A year of study at the University of Groningen isn't a break in your CV – it's a regular part of the degree within a harmonised minimum standard. And the logic doesn't stop at the exchange year. It applies equally to a complete medical degree in another EU member state, for example in Bulgaria, Hungary or Romania.

How do you get a medical study place in other European countries?

Access routes across Europe differ widely, but recognition of the degree doesn't. In Germany, a mix of quotas decides; in Flanders, a central entrance exam; in Groningen for 2026/27, a lottery; in Sweden and Denmark, grade thresholds. The table below sets documented figures from five countries side by side.

Two things stand out. There's no single standard procedure across Europe, and the number of places is set politically and capped everywhere. Yet graduates of all these systems can later practise medicine in any other member state. Put those two facts together, and it's clear why the search for a study place doesn't have to stop at a national border.

What prospective students can take from the Oldenburg model

The Oldenburg story can be summed up in one sentence: a German state is spending €238 million on buildings for a degree programme that wouldn't work without a Dutch university. Cross-border study is therefore no longer an alternative to the standard German route – it's part of it.

Federal Statistical Office figures fit this picture. In 2023, around 137,200 German students were enrolled at universities abroad, 70 percent of them in EU member states. The leading destinations were Austria with 40,700, the Netherlands with 21,100, the United Kingdom with 8,400, and the United States with 6,900 German students. In Bulgaria, according to Destatis, 82 percent of enrolled Germans studied human medicine in 2023. The Medical Faculty Association estimated at least 9,100 German medical students abroad in September 2025.

That's not a fringe group – it's a cohort roughly the size of an entire German year-group. For prospective students whose Abitur average doesn't meet German requirements, or who don't want to plan around years on a waiting list, studying medicine abroad in Europe is therefore a fully valid option with a clear route back. At Medschool Experts, we support students through exactly this path – choosing a location, preparation, the application, and recognition afterwards. We'll help you work out which location fits your situation in a free consultation.