information:extraction, structural:expansion, information:filtering, quality:corruption
The Free University of Berlin is a public research university in Berlin. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period as a Western continuation of the Friedrich Wilhelm University, or the University of Berlin, whose traditions and faculty members it retained. The Friedrich Wilhelm University, being in East Berlin, faced strong communist repression; the Free University's name referred to West Berlin's status as part of the Western Free World, contrasting with communist-controlled East Berlin. In 2008, as part of a joint effort, the Free University of Berlin, along with the Hertie School of Governance, and WZB Social Science Research Center Berlin, created the Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies. The Free University of Berlin was conferred the title of "University of Excellence" under the German Universities Excellence Initiative, of which it is part. As an institution of the Berlin University Alliance, the FU Berlin was included in the second funding line in 2019 as part of the Excellence Strategy.