Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) is one of Germany’s research-intensive universities and enjoys a high level of international visibility. This is reflected in the “Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)”, better known as the ShanghaiRanking.

In the global comparison of around 2,500 universities, JMU ranks 202nd, placing it among the top 10 percent worldwide. The university also performs very strongly at the national level: JMU ranks 3rd in Bavaria and 12th in Germany.

“We are very proud to see the excellent research conducted at JMU receiving such strong international recognition. At the same time, this result provides an incentive to continue our outstanding performance on our path towards becoming a University of Excellence”, said JMU President Paul Pauli.

How the research performance is measured

The ShanghaiRanking evaluates universities based on six indicators that capture different aspects of research performance.

These include the number of Nobel Prize and Fields Medal winners among the university’s alumni (1), the number of Nobel Prize and Fields Medal winners among its researchers (2), the number of Highly Cited Researchers (3), the number of publications in the prestigious journals Nature and Science (4), and the number of articles indexed in the Web of Science database (5). In addition, research performance is assessed in relation to the number of academic staff (6).

Particularly Strong Performance in Three Indicators

JMU demonstrates particularly strong performance in three of the six indicators. In the indicator measuring research performance per academic staff member, the university ranks among the world’s leading institutions, placing 50th. This indicator relates a university’s research productivity to the number of its academic staff, thereby enabling a fair and precise comparison of the research performance of universities of different sizes.

JMU also ranks among the international leaders in terms of the number of Nobel Prize winners among its alumni, placing 83rd worldwide.

Another outstanding result is JMU’s performance in publications in the prestigious journals Nature and Science. Here, the university ranks among the top 5 percent (122nd) worldwide.