The Research Institute for Discrete Mathematics is one of the essential scientific institutes of the University of Bonn.

It was founded in 1988 by Professor Dr. Dr.hc. Bernhard Korte and he has established the field of discrete mathematics at the University of Bonn. After a period of ten years in rooms of the house Nassestraße 2, Professor Korte was able to move with his Institute for Discrete Mathematics in 1988 into the new building Lennéstraße 2 which was to a large extent designed by him. It also houses the Arithmeum whose installation was financed with five million DM of the Bonn-Berlin compensation fund after Professor Korte made a gift of his collection of mechanical calculating machines to the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen.

The main field of application of the algorithms developed in the Research Institute for Discrete Mathematics is the design of highly complex microprocessors. The Institute has cooperated with industry for over 25 years, which is one of the longest and most successful joint ventures of a university institute with an industrial company. Today’s highly complex microprocessors cannot be designed, let alone built, without using methods of discrete mathematics.

The number of professors working at the Research Institute for Discrete Mathematics has in the meantime grown to five. They offer a wide spectrum of lecture courses along with specialist lectures; these can be studied on the Institute’s website: www.or.uni-bonn.de. The special field Discrete Mathematics is also one of the options available to students of mathematics at the University of Bonn.