In 1800, the university was moved from Ingolstadt toLandshut by KingMaximilian I Joseph of Bavaria when the city was threatened by the French, before being transferred to its present-day location in Munich in 1826 by KingLudwig I of Bavaria. In 1802, the university was officially namedLudwig-Maximilians-Universität by King Maximilian I of Bavaria in honor of himself and Ludwig IX.[3]
LMU is currently the second-largest university in Germany in terms of student population; in the 2024/25 winter semester, the university had a total of 54,616 matriculated students. Of these, 10,642 were freshmen, while international students totaled 11,415 or approximately 21% of the student population. As for the operating budget, the university records in 2023 a total of 802.8 million euros in funding without the university hospital; with the university hospital, the university has a total funding amounting to approximately 2.23 billion euros.[4]
In 1800, the Prince-Elector Maximilian IV Joseph (the laterMaximilian I, King ofBavaria) moved the university toLandshut, due to French aggression that threatened Ingolstadt during theNapoleonic Wars. In 1802, the university was renamed the Ludwig Maximilian University in honour of its two founders,Louis IX, Duke of Bavaria andMaximilian I, Elector of Bavaria. The Minister of Education,Maximilian von Montgelas, initiated a number of reforms that sought to modernize the rather conservative and Jesuit-influenced university. In 1826, it was moved toMunich, the capital of theKingdom of Bavaria. The university was situated in theOld Academy until a new building in theLudwigstraße was completed. The locals were somewhat critical of the number of Protestant professors Maximilian and later Ludwig I invited to Munich. They were dubbed the "Nordlichter" (northern lights), and especially physicianJohann Nepomuk von Ringseis was quite angry about them.[5]
View of the University of Munich from Amalienstrasse around 1900
In the second half of the 19th century, the university rose to great prominence in the European scientific community, attracting many of the world's leading scientists. It was also a period of great expansion. From 1903, women were allowed to study at Bavarian universities, and by 1918, the female proportion of students at LMU had reached 18%. In 1918,Adele Hartmann became the first woman in Germany to earn theHabilitation (higher doctorate), at LMU.
During theThird Reich, academic freedom was severely curtailed. In 1943, theWhite Rose group, consisting of anti-Nazi students, carried out a campaign opposing the National Socialists at this institution. The university subsequently removed Kurt Huber, a Nazi opposition fighter, from his position and revoked his doctorate upon his arrest.
View of the main building of LMU from Professor-Huber-Platz in 2017
TheLichthof (atrium)Colonnade in the first floor
The university has continued to be one of the leading universities ofWest Germany during theCold War and in the post-reunification era. In the late 1960s, the university was the scene of protests by radical students.
Today, 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, an educational policy concept ofBavaria for the promotion of gifted pupils and students in the higher education sector. 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 theGerman Universities 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 academiccenter 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 theGerman 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".
In January 2012, scientists at the Ludwig Maximilian University published details of the most sensitive listening device known so far. This has led to the college being inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records.[6]
In September 2018, the Munich public prosecutor's office investigated a university vice president on suspicion of embezzlement. The vice president should have claimed "excessive travel expenses".[7] The following year, veterinary students reported that the LMU violated animal welfare standards. According to them, the LMU keeps pigs in tight grid boxes, so that some animals showed scratches, bumps and respiratory diseases from lying down. Students who reported these circumstances said that they were threatened with deregistration from the university.[8] In the beginning of 2020, the LMU locked around 80 students in a room who wanted to discuss the topic "Climate Burns, University Burns," about why universities are doing research for companies that are harmful to theclimate.[9]
LMU's institutes and research centers are spread throughout Munich, with several buildings located in the suburbs ofOberschleissheim andGarching as well asMaisach andBad Tölz. The university's main buildings are grouped around Geschwister-Scholl-Platz and Professor-Huber-Platz onLudwigstrasse, extending into side streets such as Akademiestraße, Schellingstraße, and Veterinärstraße. Other large campuses and institutes are located inGroßhadern (Klinikum Großhadern),Martinsried (chemistry and biotechnology campus), the Ludwigsvorstadt (Klinikum Innenstadt) and in theLehel (Institut am Englischen Garten), across from the main buildings, through theEnglischer Garten.
The große Aula is located in the university main building at Ludwigstraße in Munich. The Aula was constructed as part of the main building byFriedrich von Gärtner and completed in 1840. The hall is situated in the firstfloor and extends to the second floor.
The Aula was not destroyed duringWorld War II and, thus, is one of few usable pre war venues inMunich. The Aula was used for the first performances of concerts after the war. Furthermore, it was venue for the constituent assembly of the state ofBavaria, where the current Bavarian constitution was enacted.[10]
Today, the Aula hosts mainly concerts, talks and lectures.
Despite theBologna Process which saw the demise of most traditional academic-degree courses such as theDiplom andMagister Artium in favour of the more internationally knownBachelors andMasters system, the University of Munich continues to offer more than 100 areas of study with numerous combinations of majors and minors.[11]
In line with the university's internationalisation as a popular destination for tertiary studies, an increasing number of courses mainly at the graduate and post-graduate levels are also available in English to cater to international students who may have little or no background in the German language.[12] Some notable subject areas which currently offer programmes in English include various fields ofpsychology,physics as well as business and management.[13]
The university consists of 18 faculties which oversee various departments and institutes.[14] The official numbering of the faculties and the missing numbers 06 and 14 are the result of breakups and mergers of faculties in the past. The Faculty of Forestry Operations with number 06 has been integrated into theTechnical University of Munich in 1999 and faculty number 14 has been merged with faculty number 13.[15][16][17][unreliable source?]
In addition to its 18 faculties, the University of Munich also maintains numerous research centres involved in numerous cross-faculty and transdisciplinary projects to complement its various academic programmes.[18] Some of these research centres were a result of cooperation between the university and renowned external partners from academia and industry; theRachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, for example, was established through a joint initiative between LMU Munich and theDeutsches Museum, while the Parmenides Center for the Study of Thinking resulted from the collaboration between theParmenides Foundation and LMU Munich's Human Science Center.[19]
Some of the research centres which have been established include:
Universities in Bavaria do not charge tuition fees. Instead, a mandatory semester fee has to be paid that is fully transferred to the student union for providing, amongst other services, housing and lunch options for students.
The 2026QS World University Rankings rank LMU Munich 58th overall in the world and 2nd in Germany.[20] In the 2024 QS Subject Rankings, the university is highly ranked in the arts and humanities, natural sciences, and life sciences and medicine.[23]
TheTimes Higher Education Ranking 2024 ranks LMU Munich 2nd in Germany, and 38th in the world.[21] In the 2023 THE subject rankings, LMU is ranked first in Germany in the arts and humanities, law, and psychology.[24]
TheAcademic Ranking of World Universities ranks LMU Munich 1st nationally and 42nd in the world as of 2025.[22] In the subjects of physics, education, communication, public administration, and hospitality, it is ranked first in Germany.[25]
The Munich International Summer University (MISU at LMU) is the Summer University by LMU, which takes place annually in Munich and depending on the course also involves stays at different European cities. MISU invites international students to attend short-term programs at the LMU Munich in order to progress academically even in winter or summer breaks at their home university. MISU hereby offers two course formats: On the one hand German Language classes are held at different times over the year. On the other hand, MISU offers 16 subject-specific Summer Schools and Winter Schools covering a wide range of academic fields. Around 1000 students from nearly 90 countries joined MISU short-term programs in 2019.[31]
Germany has a long tradition of hosting summer programs for international students.[32] The LMU Munich organised its Summer University for the first time in 1927. Labelled asSommerkurse für Ausländer (Summer Courses for Foreigners) the Summer University ran annually until 1934 and primarily consisted of German Language courses for international students.[33] After a longer intermittence period, LMU's Summer University resumed asInternationaler Münchner Sommer (International Summer in Munich). Since then the number of courses has increased and the range of subject-specific Summer Schools was extended to further academic disciplines. From 2008 onwards LMU's Summer University operates under the name Munich International Summer University (MISU).[34]
A central aim of MISU is to boost the internationality of the LMU Munich in terms of research and teaching.[35] Compared to semester-basedstudent exchange programs, short-term programs such as Summer Schools have the advantage for international students to receive a very intensive and concise insight into the research areas and campus at the LMU Munich.[36] MISU hereby has the objective to combine excellent academic education with extra-curricular activities. Participants are thus not only supervised intensively by established researchers on selected topics but are also introduced to the history, culture and politics of Munich, Bavaria and Germany. Moreover, the Summer University allows the LMU Munich to intensify cooperation with international partner universities. MISU's short-term programs therefore strengthen the LMU's international visibility as one of the highest ranked universities in Europe.[37][failed verification]
The alumni of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich played a major role in the development ofquantum mechanics.Max Planck, the founder ofquantum theory and Nobel laureate inPhysics in 1918, was an alumnus of the university. Founders ofquantum mechanics such asWerner Heisenberg,Wolfgang Pauli, and others were associated with the university.Most recently, to honor the Nobel laureate inChemistryGerhard Ertl, who worked as a professor at the University of Munich from 1973 to 1986, the building of thePhysical Chemistry was named after him.
^"Wortgewaltiger Gegner der Nordlichter: Der Mediziner Johann Nepomuk von Ringseis", in: Ulrike Leutheusser, Heinrich Nöth (Hg.), "Dem Geist alle Tore öffnen". König Maximilian II. von Bayern und die Wissenschaft, München 2009, pp. 142–153; 2. Aufl. München 2011, pp. 142–153.
^Munich International Summer University: "MISU at LMU Annual Report 2019", 2019.
^Joachim Hoffmann:Zur Geschichte der Universitätsferienkurse. In:Informationen Deutsch als Fremdsprache, Nr. 12,4, 1985, p. 341–352.
^Ulrich Bauer:Sommerschulen für Interkulturelle Deutschstudien. Geschichte-Konzeptualisierung-Modellbildung. Ein Beitrag zur Angewandten Lehrforschung Interkultureller Germanistik, IUDICIUM Verlag, 2002, p. 73.
^Munich International Summer University:MISU at LMU Annual Report 2019, 2019, p. 8.
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