Professors and scientific and technical staff work within a strong team structure, offering personal contact, guidance and support to students, covering all relevant areas of civil engineering and ensuring up-to-date, scientifically and practically sound professional training through their strong networks with companies and authorities in the field of civil engineering. Many project modules and almost all final papers are carried out in cooperation with regional companies and bodies and deal with real-life tasks.

Long-standing international contacts are in place with universities in Russia, Spain and the USA. In addition, the faculty's internationalisation officer, in cooperation with colleagues, has also supported stays abroad at numerous other universities in Europe (e.g. Finland), Africa (e.g. Mauritius), South America (e.g. Brazil), Asia/Oceania (e.g. New Zealand) and regularly offers excursions abroad. Foreign students and students with a migration background born in Germany enrich the university experience in a variety of ways.

The faculty has several well-equipped laboratories (e.g. building materials, steel construction, hydraulic engineering, EDP/computer science) which are integrated into the degree courses and where students are involved in research and development projects, expert report writing, research services and doctoral projects. The course systematically introduces students to practice-relevant software. In the area of continuing professional education, the faculty also cooperates with recognised external educational institutes (e.g. in the area of BIM or construction management/monitoring).

The faculty is primarily focused on application-oriented research and development projects as well as research services and consulting activities. This very much guarantees close contacts with (regional) practical issues. In addition, lecturers work in various specialist institutions and committees on normative principles and standards in civil engineering and are (co-)authors of specialist publications. All these activities also serve to ensure the quality of teaching.

The offerings and the structure of the dual degree programme within the bachelor’s degree Civil Engineering are unique. The cooperation between the training centre Kerpen of the construction industry in NRW, the TH Cologne and the training companies and authorities ensures a high-quality dual training programme, which also has a lasting effect on the academic success of students not studying for a dual degree and provides participating companies with qualified young recruits. Given that there are 150 people interested in the course each year, the current number of 40-50 dual degree students can be significantly increased.