Research and teaching at JMU are grouped in eight interdisciplinary priority areas: Life Sciences / Health Sciences /Molecular Chemistry, Nanoscale Materials and Processes / Quantum Phenomena in New Materials / Digital Society / Cultural Heritage / Global Changes / Norms and Behaviour. In all of these fields, JMU places great emphasis on cooperating with the business sector and on facilitating the transfer of knowledge into society at large – endeavoring at all times to be true to its motto, “Science for Society”.

In addition to the classical disciplines of law, medicine, philosophy, and theology, JMU offers a host of innovative courses such as Nanostructure Technology, Modern China, or Games Engineering. The university also offers teacher training courses for almost every type of school. JMU offers its students modern styles of instruction, in which there is continuous further development, and which feature new formats such as “inverted classrooms”. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research is promoting these efforts: As a part of the “Quality Pact on Teaching”, JMU is continuing to expand its innovative forms of instruction further; in addition, JMU is investing very heavily in providing mentoring to students. This is true particularly with respect to students at the introductory phase of their studies, during which the university provides intensive support.

JMU’s success in research is due to its top-rank academics and scientists, with their global connections, and its many cross-disciplinary research centres in the humanities and social sciences, as well as in the natural sciences and medicine. In the nation-wide competition “Excellence Strategy 2018” JMU has, together with TU Dresden, been granted the funding of a Cluster of Excellence in physics. Again and again, international rankings confirm JMU’s top position within the league tables of German and European universities. JMU is regularly awarded prestigious prizes, such as the DFG’s Leibniz prizes or top-level grants by the European Research Council. In the university’s four graduate schools, young people from over 60 countries are pursuing doctoral degree studies.