Main building of the Ludwig Maximilians University
Main staircase of the university, Munich
The Atrium of the main building
The
Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich (), also known as
LMU, is a
university in
Munich and, with more than 44,000 students, is the second-largest university in
Germany.
The majority of foreign exchanges at the University of Munich are with European universities. The main building is situated in
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz. The university's main campus is served by the
Munich U-Bahn's
Universität station.
According to the (2006), the LMU is the highest ranked German university (51st), and according to the German , the LMU is the second highest ranked German university (behind the
Technical University of Munich).
Global University Ranking 2009 also places LMU among 51 best universities in the world.
History
The university originally existed as the
University of Ingolstadt from 1472 (foundation right of
Louis IX the Rich) to 1802 in
Ingolstadt and was then moved to
Landshut by Maximilian IV Joseph (the later
Maximilian I King of
Bavaria). After a short time it was moved to the capital of Bavaria,
Munich, in the year 1826, by
Louis I. It is named after Louis IX, Duke of Bavaria and Maximilian I, King of Bavaria. The university was situated in the
Old Academy until a new building in the
Ludwigstraße was completed.
In 1943 the
White Rose group of anti-Nazi students conducted their campaign of opposition to Hitler at this university.
Nowadays the University of Munich is part of 24 Collaborative Research Centers funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and is host university of 13 of them. It also hosts 12 DFG Research Training Groups and three international doctorate programs as part of the Elite Network of Bavaria. It attracts an additional 120 million euros per year in outside funding and is intensively involved in national and international funding initiatives.
LMU Munich has a wide range of degree programs, with 150 subjects available in numerous combinations. 15% of the 45,000 students who attend the university come from abroad.
In 2005, Germany’s state and federal governments launched the
Excellence Initiative, a contest among its universities. With a total of 1.9 billion euros, 75 percent of which comes from the federal state, its architects aim to strategically promote top-level research and
scholarship. The money is given to more than 30 research universities in Germany.
The Initiative will fund three project-oriented areas:
Graduate schools to promote the next generation of scholars, clusters of excellence to promote cutting-edge research and “future concepts” for the project-based expansion of academic excellence at universities as a whole. In order to qualify for this third area, a university had to have at least one internationally recognized academic
center of excellence and a new graduate school.
After the first round of selections, LMU Munich was invited to submit applications for all three funding lines: It entered the competition with proposals for two graduate schools and four clusters of excellence.
On Friday 13 October 2006, a blue-ribbon panel announced the results of the Germany-wide Excellence Initiative for promoting top university research and education. The panel, composed of the
German Research Foundation and the German Science Council, has decided that LMU Munich will receive funding for all three areas covered by the Initiative: one
Graduate school, three “excellence clusters” and general funding for the university’s “future concept”.
University buildings
The LMU's institutes and research centres are spread throughout Munich, with several buildings located in the suburbs of
Oberschleissheim and
Garching as well as
Maisach and
Bad Tölz. The university's main buildings are grouped around the Geschwister-Scholl-Platz and Professor-Huber-Platz on the
Ludwigstrasse, extending into side streets such as Akademiestraße, Schellingstraße and Veterinärstraße. Other large campuses and institutes are located in
Großhadern (
Klinikum Großhadern, the
Ludwigsvorstadt (
Klinikum Innenstadt) and in the
Lehel (
Institut am Englischen Garten), across from the main buildings, through the
Englischer Garten.
Faculties
The University currently consists of 18 faculties:
Associated research centers
The University also includes the following research departments which are run cooperatively with other organizations.
Parmenides Center, run together with the
Parmenides Foundation.
Rachel Carson Center for Environmental Studies, a joint initiative of LMU and
Deutsches Museum.
Notable alumni and faculty
Many notable individuals have studied or taught at the University of Munich. For example, 36 nobel laureates are associated with the university.
The alumni of Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich played a major role in the development of
quantum mechanics.
Max Planck, the founder of
quantum theory and Nobel laureate in
Physics in 1918, was an alumnus of the university. Founder of
quantum mechanics such as
Werner Heisenberg,
Wolfgang Pauli and others were associated with the university.
Most recently to honor the Nobel laureate in
Chemistry Gerhard Ertl, who worked as a professor at the University of Munich from 1973-1986, the building of the
Physical Chemistry has been named after him.
