New Semester Is Just around the Corner

Exactly 25,295 students are currently (as of 9 October 2025) enrolled at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU). In comparison: Last year, there were 25,894 shortly before the start of lectures.

So far, 2,736 first-year students have enrolled for the winter semester; a drop compared to the previous year, when this figure was 3,238 at a comparable time. The main reason for the expected decline is the largely missing 2025 Abitur cohort in Bavaria. As in previous years, the number of students will continue to grow until the official deadline for determining the number of new students on 1 December, so that, together with the 676 new students from the 2025 summer semester, around 3,500 new students are expected for the 2025/26 academic year.

As things stand, 15,584 female students and 9,658 male students attend lectures and seminars. 53 students did not specify their gender. The proportion of women is therefore 61.7 per cent and has risen slightly compared to the previous year.

So far, 2,998 foreign students have enrolled. This corresponds to 11.8 per cent of the total number of students - an increase of almost two per cent. A positive trend which the university would like to keep up in the future.

Women in professorships: From 1 January 2025 to 1 November 2025, 24 new professorships were filled, and JMU has succeeded in further increasing the proportion of women. It currently stands at 29.7 per cent; at the end of 2020, it was 23 per cent. University President Paul Pauli is pleased with this positive trend, but emphasises that the university is continuing to work on increasing the proportion of female professors. As of 1 October 2025, a total of 491 female and male professors were working at JMU and the University Hospital.

Popular subjects: Law, economics, medicine and teacher training programmes are traditionally in high demand. There are currently 5,720 students enrolled on teacher training programmes at JMU - slightly fewer than a year ago.

Overall, the student teachers at JMU are distributed across the individual types of school:

• Grammar school: 2027
• Primary school: 1702
• Special school: 1302
• Realschule: 454
• Middle school: 235

New Degree Programmes launched

Several new degree programmes and supplementary courses will start at the University of Würzburg in the winter semester 2025/26.

The Bachelor's degree programme in Nursing Sciences, offered by the Chair of Nursing Sciences at the Faculty of Medicine, combines two degrees over seven semesters: a Bachelor of Science and training as a nurse. The dual degree programme provides students with theoretical and practical training.

As part of the teacher training programme, psychology with a focus on school psychology is a new course at the university. The new programme combines psychological subject content with pedagogical and didactic elements from teacher training. The degree programme can be studied as a teaching or extension subject for grammar school, secondary school, middle school and primary school teachers and prepares students for a career as a school psychologist.

The new Master's degree programme Global Challenges for Sustainability has a European flavour. This is being offered as part of the CHARM EU university alliance together with the eight partner universities. Since September 2025, CHARM students have been on site in Würzburg for the first time. The interdisciplinary programme focuses on sustainability topics and the teaching of intercultural skills. The students are spread across Europe, from Spain to Finland, and study together in modern hybrid classrooms.

Other new Master's programmes include Computational Humanities, a combination of the humanities and computer science, GEOSPHERES, which teaches modern methods for dealing with the challenges of climate change, and Adult Education and Management in Lifelong Education, which prepares students for the constantly growing adult education market.

Additional new programmes include the Synopsis Kolleg, which aims to give undecided young people an insight into the diversity of science and university life. 16 people have opted for the one-year programme, which includes special courses as well as personal development courses, for example.

The Recognising and Preventing the Abuse of Power certificate is aimed at all students as well as people from relevant professional fields, such as teaching or nursing staff. It teaches the basics of dealing with power and sensitises students to the issue of overstepping boundaries and prevention.

The Career Center offers the Professional Skills certificate, which teaches interdisciplinary skills in areas such as communication, digitalisation and social issues over four semesters. Bachelor's, Master's and doctoral students are thus prepared for the dynamic labour market.

Towards a University of Excellence with two Clusters of Excellence

In May, both Würzburg applications for Clusters of Excellence were approved in the nationwide "Excellence Strategy" competition. Their financial support will begin on 1 January 2026.

The new Cluster of Excellence NUCLEATE, a joint initiative with the two Munich universities TUM and LMU, conducts research into nucleic acids such as RNA and DNA. The aim is to develop new medical therapeutic approaches.

The ctd.qmat cluster, which the University of Würzburg has been successfully running together with TU Dresden since 2019, will be continued. Here, researchers are working on innovative materials that could form an important basis for future technologies. The foundations for technological applications have already been laid with patents for topological lasers and ultra-precise measurements.

With two Clusters of Excellence, JMU fulfils the requirements to enter the race for the title of University of Excellence.

A total of 21 locations are applying for the coveted millions in funding, which in this case is not intended for individual research projects, but for the infrastructure of the university as a whole.

Alongside the existing Universities of Excellence in Munich, the University of Würzburg is the only Bavarian university that still has a chance of being awarded the prestigious title. The complex application will be submitted in November 2025 and the decision on funding will be made on 2 October 2026. Being awarded the title of University of Excellence would be a ground-breaking step, would make JMU more visible internationally and would help to further develop an environment of excellent research and teaching.

Great success with the ERC grants

University President Pauli was delighted with JMU's outstanding performance in the ERC grants over the past 12 months. No fewer than ten grants were awarded to Würzburg during this period. The last time there were six in one go was in September - more than at any other German university. From Ancient Near Eastern Studies to Neuroscience and Cell Biology, JMU researchers have received millions in funding from the European Research Council.