The University of Mannheim (German: Universität Mannheim), abbreviated UMA, is a public research university in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1967, the university has its origins in the Palatine Academy of Sciences, which was established by Elector Carl Theodor at Mannheim Palace in 1763, as well as the Handelshochschule (Commercial College Mannheim), which was founded in 1907. The university is regularly ranked as Germany's best business school as well as a leading institution in economics and social sciences. The university offers undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs in business administration, economics, law, social sciences, humanities, mathematics, computer science and information systems. The university's campus is located in the city center of Mannheim and its main campus is in the Mannheim Palace. In the academic year 2020/2021 the university had 11,640 full-time students, 1600 academic staff, with 194 professors, and a total income of around €121 million. It is organized into five schools and two graduate colleges. History The University of Mannheim has no clear foundation date. Its history can be dated back to the establishment of one of its predecessor institutions – the Kurpfälzische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Palatine Academy of Sciences) in Mannheim Palace, which was founded by Elector Carl Theodor in 1763. Further predecessors are the Municipal Commercial College Mannheim (1907–1933) which was reopened in 1946 as the State College for Economics Mannheim and renamed University of Mannheim in 1967. 20th century Municipal Commercial College Mannheim (1907–1933) In 1907, the Städtische Handelshochschule Mannheim (Municipal Commercial College) was founded on the initiative of Mannheim's senior mayor Otto Beck (1846–1908) and the economics professor Eberhard Gothein (1853–1923) as a college for future merchants. It conducted teaching and research in business administration, economics, pedagogy, psychology, law, languages and the humanities. From the beginning, women had a strong standing at the Handelshochschule. In 1908, it was the first college of higher education in Germany to employ a female professor; one quarter of all students were female. In 1933, the Handelshochschule was merged into the University of Heidelberg by the Nazi municipal administration. Otto Selz, a German philosopher and psychologist with a Jewish background, who had been a professor at the Handelshochschule since 1923 and its rector in 1929/30, was discharged on 6 April 1933 – following the Badischen Judenerlass administered by NSDAP politician Robert Heinrich Wagner, a waiver designed to ban Jewish academics from German universities. In 1943, Selz was executed in Auschwitz concentration