Developing sustainable solutions for the social challenges of the present and future: That is the goal of the HAW Hamburg - Northern Germany's leading university when it comes to reflected practice. The focus is on the excellent quality of study and teaching. At the same time, HAW Hamburg is further developing its profile as a research university. People from more than 100 nations help shape HAW Hamburg. Their diversity is their particular strength.

The Hamburg University of Applied Sciences was founded in 1970 as the Fachhochschule Hamburg. Four engineering schools and six vocational schools were brought together with the goal of developing a new form of higher education. The focus was on the application of knowledge, with degree programmes that included placements in industry, laboratory work and practice-related projects.

The Fachhochschule Hamburg initially had 13 departments. Its Business School was founded in 1994.

In 1998, as part of the increased internationalisation within higher education in Germany, the Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs allowed the Fachhochschulen to add 'university of applied sciences' to their names. In 2001, the Fachhochschule Hamburg decided to take this a step further and changed its German name to Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften Hamburg (HAW Hamburg), which more closely reflected the English name, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences.

All of the Bachelor's programmes offered at the university are taught in German, with the exception of Information Engineering, which offers both English and German options.

At the end of 2007, the Faculty of Business and Public Management and the Faculty of Social Work and Nursing were joined to form one faculty. Today the university has four faculties at four different campus locations in Hamburg:

Engineering and Computer Science
Life Sciences
Design, Media and Information
Business and Social Sciences
As of 1 January 2006, the Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geomatics departments joined the building faculties of two other Hamburg universities to become the new HafenCity University.