It's funny you mention that, Irmgard, b/c I could have sworn I'd read that the Langobards were an East Germanic tribe. But I also just read a book that classified them as West Germanic, and in fact now I can't find any place that considers them East Germanic. Am I going crazy? :-)

Anyway, since we know next to nothing (as far as I've ever heard) about their language, I don't imagine there would be a program just in Lombardic studies; but any full Germanic studies department that doesn't limit itself to modern languages ought to know something about it.

The book I have, The Germanic Languages, ed. by Ekkehard König and Johan van der Auwera, makes this brief mention of the Lombards in a paragraph about migrations:

As for West Germanic, tribal groups of Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded England during the fifth and sixth centuries, and the Langobard(ic) (Lombard) tribe moved into Italy. Whereas the southward expansion proved unsuccessful (by the end of the first millenium Langobardic was basically extinct), the westward expansion led to modern English.

Moreover, I remember reading another book recently that grouped the Lombards with the Bavarii and Alemanni and Thuringians, suggesting that their language would have been close to Old High German.

Oh, one more thing. I also remember in my travels seeing JRR Tolkien use the name Alboin as a Langobardic form of OE Ælfwine. Not exactly a reconstruction of the language, but it's a tidbit.