The Bonn University Museum opened in June 2013. It is located in the rooms of the former student library in the main university building. The University Museum sees itself as a ‘showcase for science’ and aims to bring the work, achievements and history of the University of Bonn closer to a wider public.

The museum's collection, which is still under construction, primarily comprises objects from the field of academic customs and traditions. These include gowns and caps, seal impressions and seals, gifts from foreign delegations, congratulatory certificates for anniversaries and other festive occasions, carnival medals from the University of Bonn and similar items. Materials from research and teaching, such as microscopes, glass picture plates and heliometers, have also been donated from the natural sciences. An extensive collection of plaster works by the Bonn artist Ingeborg von Rath is stored in the depot.

The University Museum was founded by the University Archives of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. Its permanent exhibition would be inconceivable without the ‘flat materials’ that have been given to the museum on permanent loan in the form of files, leaflets, identity cards, passports, doctoral certificates and photographs. The holdings of the University Archives, with their archive and collection materials, are essentially part and parcel of the University Museum's repository. The history of the University of Bonn is preserved here on 4,000 metres of shelving. In addition to administrative files from the university administration, academic self-government and student committees, the holdings also include bequests and the archives of various student groups and fraternities.