The 200-year-old Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn is an internationally operating, cooperation and focus-oriented research university with a wide range of currently around 200 bachelor's and master's degree programs, some of them part-time. More than 35,000 people study at the seven faculties of the comprehensive university, of whom around 4,400 come from abroad. Among the approximately 7,000 doctoral students are about 2,000 with foreign citizenship. The university has around 6,000 employees, including 561 professors. Together with the University Hospital Bonn with more than 8,000 employees, it is one of the largest employers in the region. Over 70 partner universities worldwide represent the excellent international networking.

Since 2019, the university with its six clusters of excellence and the successful overall concept has been a university of excellence. Among other things, this status enables the university to expand its international position and better recruit scientists*. The City of Bonn supports the University of Bonn in its projects through a joint "Memorandum of Understandig", which regulates the basis of cooperation and its development. The Economic Development Department cooperates closely with the university, for example in the areas of career counseling, start-up and innovation promotion, and science communication. To this end, it also works with the university's Transfer Center enaCom. The cooperation of enaCOM with the Digital Hub Region Bonn makes start-up activities even more visible centrally in downtown Bonn.

Founded in 1995, the university has around 9,500 students and about 1,000 employees, including 150 professors. It currently offers 39 bachelor's and master's degree programs in Sankt Augustin, Rheinbach and Hennef. More than half of its approximately 1,200 graduates each year remain in the region. The Center for Science and Technology Transfer ZWT promotes cooperation with companies and organizations and advises on funding programs and exploitation aspects. The Bonn Economic Development Agency works closely with the ZWT and CENTIM (Center for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and SMEs) and supports the Start-up-Manufaktur. This is an initiative of the SUPRA project (Start-up Program Rheinbach Sankt Augustin), which is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy as part of the EXIST program. Through the Campus to World project of the federal-state funding initiative "Innovative University", activities in the area of knowledge transfer are being expanded in order to network the university with business and society in the region.

The Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences is a state-recognized art university with two locations (in Alfter and Mannheim) and part of the Bonn art scene. The university currently has around 2,000 students and 243 employees (including 53 professors) and offers 22 full- and part-time degree programs. In the Department of Business and Economics, contacts with local companies are being expanded.

The RheinAhrCampus Remagen is one of three locations of the Koblenz University of Applied Sciences. The strong practical orientation of the studies and the teaching of interdisciplinary knowledge in the fields of "Mathematics and Technology" and "Economics and Social Sciences" prepare the approximately 2,900 students in around 20 courses of study for the job market. The close contacts with the business community are supported by the RheinAhrCampus transfer office, with which the Bonn Business Development Agency cooperates in events. As a regional innovation and service center, the campus is integrated into the regional health network and the science region and also offers numerous part-time distance learning courses.

The caesar research center became the Max Planck Institute for the Neurobiology of Behavior at the beginning of 2022. The institute, which was previously associated with the research community, is thus now a full member of the Max Planck Society.

There have also been changes for the Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig, which has been merged with the Center for Natural History of the University of Hamburg in the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change and which are now jointly conducting research on biodiversity change across sites.

With the European location of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), the science location Bonn gets a top-class addition. ECMWF is a scientific world leader in the field of weather forecasting and climatology. Among other things, it carries out its tasks in the EU Earth observation program "Copernicus" from Bonn. 

The six Fraunhofer institutes with locations in Bonn, Sankt Augustin, Wachtberg and Euskirchen with more than 1,700 employees stand for non-university top-level research in the field of I&C technologies and form an interface between science and industry. Together with the University of Bonn, RWTH Aachen University and Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences, the Fraunhofer Institute Center Birlinghoven is part of the Bonn-Aachen International Center for Information Technology. The Cyber Security degree program at the University of Bonn is just one example of the close cooperation between the Fraunhofer institutes and the universities The Bonn Economic Development Department plays an active role on the boards of trustees of Fraunhofer FKIE and Fraunhofer SCAI.