  We report on the setup and initial discoveries of the Northern High Time
Resolution Universe survey for pulsars and fast transients, the first major
pulsar survey conducted with the 100-m Effelsberg radio telescope and the first
in 20 years to observe the whole northern sky at high radio frequencies. Using
a newly developed 7-beam receiver system combined with a state-of-the-art
polyphase filterbank, we record an effective bandwidth of 240 MHz in 410
channels centred on 1.36 GHz with a time resolution of 54 $\mu$s. Such fine
time and frequency resolution increases our sensitivity to millisecond pulsars
and fast transients, especially deep inside the Galaxy, where previous surveys
have been limited due to intra-channel dispersive smearing. To optimise
observing time, the survey is split into three integration regimes dependent on
Galactic latitude, with 1500-s, 180-s and 90-s integrations for latitude ranges
$|b|<3.5^{\circ}$, $|b|<15^{\circ}$ and $|b|>15^{\circ}$, respectively. The
survey has so far resulted in the discovery of 15 radio pulsars, including a
pulsar with a characteristic age of $\sim18$ kyr, {PSR J2004+3429}, and a
highly eccentric, binary millisecond pulsar, {PSR J1946+3417}. All newly
discovered pulsars are timed using the 76-m Lovell radio telescope at the
Jodrell Bank Observatory and the Effelsberg radio telescope. We present timing
solutions for all newly discovered pulsars and discuss potential supernova
remnant associations for {PSR J2004+3429}.
