The university's main campus is located in the south of the city (at Warburger Straße 100). The vast majority of the 13,700 students currently enrolled at Paderborn and the 1,685 University employees are based on the main campus. In addition, there are a number of departments that are located in the university buildings at Fürstenallee 11, next to the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum.

The university's ideology demonstrates a marked leaning towards the notion of 'a university for the modern day communication and information society'. Consequently, the strong academic emphasis on computer science and its various means of application and the synthesis, on an interdisciplinary level, of many academic disciplines through information technology have resulted in the successful realisation of this belief. Yet the university is aiming ever higher, this borne out in its critical support of scientific and technical developments within the data exchange community. The university's fundamental responsibility to its students, namely opening their eyes to enduring cultural values remains intact, reinforced by the concomitant intention to take full advantage of the chances offered by a shared quest for knowledge and communication.

It therefore follows that each scientific subject taught at Paderborn is strongly influenced by this ideological promotion of communication in its many guises, with computer science and mathematics as its sister subject (in view of the crucial role played by mathematics in the theory of information technology) as inevitable exemplars. The same applies to the sciences of engineering (including information technology, electronics and mechanical engineering), physics and chemistry, to economics, arts and humanities. By means of probing research, each faculty contributes to the development of the university as a centre of communication, even the arts subjects serving as leading and independent exponents of this approach.

The university's ideology advocates inclusiveness, encouraging internationalism, art and creativity as a positive contrast to the increasingly global dimensions of knowledge and communication in our markedly cerebral world. This explains the value placed by the university on its societies and orchestras: the university orchestra, the Big Band and Jazz Choir, as well as the Amateur Dramatics society and various art exhibitions all play a crucial role in university life.