Metadata

Title: Facts and Figures about the University
Category: undergraduate
UUID: 2804c9e39036402dac16ca0a749c4139

Source URL: https://www.uni-bonn.de/en/university/about-the-university/facts-and-figures
Parent URL: https://www.uni-bonn.de/en/university/about-the-university
Crawl Time: 2026-03-19T07:19:24+00:00

Facts and Figures about the University

Source: https://www.uni-bonn.de/en/university/about-the-university/facts-and-figures Parent: https://www.uni-bonn.de/en/university/about-the-university

Since 2019 we are one of eleven German Universities of Excellence. We have eight Clusters of Excellence1 - more than any other funded university. In recent decades, two Nobel Prize winners have emerged from our ranks, and we are the University with the only two German winners of the Fields Medal. Around 31,000 students study with us in around 200 subject areas.

Excellence Strategy and Collaborative Research

8 Clusters of Excellence1
University of Excellence2 since 2019
13 Collaborative Research Centres3
10 Research Units3
5 Research Training Groups3
12 BMBF Collaborative Research Projects4
69 ERC Grants5 (including completed projects)
23 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prizes6 (including emeriti und alumni)

Agricultural research for a sustainable future. © Volker Lannert/Uni Bonn

Students in the Akademisches Kunstmuseum (Academic Art Museum) © Frank Homann/Uni Bonn

Studies and Teaching

31,318 students (of which about 5,285 are from abroad)
6,769 doctoral students (of which about 1,877 are from abroad)
253 different academic disciplines and degree programs
over 4,285 graduates per year

Last updated: December 2025 (preliminary numbers - graduates and doctoral students status December 2024)

Employees and Finances

707 professors1
5,536 research staff1
1,988 administrative and technical staff2
835,5 million euros budget volume
214,67 million euros in third-party research funding

1 not including Faculty of Medicine\ 2 Faculty of Medicine and Clinics not included

Last updated: December 2024 (preliminary numbers)

The Band Cat Ballou performs at the University’s Summer Festival on Campus Poppelsdorf. © Volker Lannert/Uni Bonn

Clusters of Excellence

31,318

Students

Faculties

Nobel Prize Laureates and Fields Medalists

The University of Bonn has produced more Nobel Prize and Fields Medal winners than any other German university in the past few decades. The only two German winners of the Fields Medal are professors at the University of Bonn.

Nobel Prize Laureate Reinhard Selten

Professor Reinhard Selten, Nobel Prize Laureat in Economics © Volker Lannert/Uni Bonn

Reinhard Selten (1930-2016) was an important economist and mathematician. He was a professor at the University of Bonn from 1984 and founder of the Laboratory for Experimental Economics (BonnEconLab)7. Together with John Nash and John Harsanyi, he was the first and so far only German to receive the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics in 1994 for his groundbreaking contributions to game theory.

Find out more8

Nobel Prize Laureate Wolfgang Paul

Opening of the academic year 93/94. Rector Huber presents Wolfgang Paul with the title of Honorary Senator. © Ulrike E. Klopp/Uni Bonn

Wolfgang Paul (1913-1993) was one of the leading German physicists in the second half of the 20th century. From 1952 he was professor at the University of Bonn and built the first European electron synchrotron, which was later expanded to today's accelerator ELSA9. In 1989 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for developing the "ion trap".

Fields Medalist Peter Scholze

Professor Peter Scholze, Fields medalist © Günther Ortmann

Peter Scholze (born 1987) is regarded worldwide as an exceptional mathematical talent. In 2016 he, who had already studied in Bonn, was appointed by the Hausdorff Center for Mathematics10 in Bonn as the youngest professor in Germany at the age of 24. After a series of high-level awards, the arithmetic-algebraic geometry expert received the Fields Medal in 2018.

Find out more11

Fields Medalist Gerd Faltings

Professor Gerd Faltings, Fields medalist © Barbara Frommann/Uni Bonn

Gerd Faltings (born 1958) is a world-renowned mathematician. The scientist researching in the field of number theory and algebraic geometry was the first German ever to receive the Fields Medal. From 1995 until 2023, he was the director at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics12 in Bonn and part of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences13 at the University of Bonn.

Find out more14

Infrastructure - Your turn to guess!

How many castles does the University have?

Two! The main building of the university is the baroque residence palace of the former electors of Cologne. It has belonged to the newly founded University since 1818 and today houses the Faculty of Arts and the faculties of theology. The Poppelsdofer Castle at the other end of the Poppelsdorfer Allee was called Caslte Clemensruh and used to serve as the Electors as a pleasure palace and summer residence. Today it houses biological and geoscientific subjects.

How many of the University's 349 buildings are listed?

A proud 67 of our buildings are listed and protected as historic monuments.

The University has a total of 58 libraries. How many volumes do you think there are all together?

There are around 5,000,000 volumes. But we haven't counted them that exactly yet.

What comes out of our power sockets?

The University of Bonn has annual electricity consumption of around 52,000-megawatt hours - and 100% green electricity.

Find out more

Why Bonn?

Why you should study, work or research in Bonn.

*All the reasons15*

Our Vision

This is what we stand for at the University of Bonn.

*Read our mission statement16*

Networks

Numerous international, national, and regional partners and collaborations connect the University of Bonn with the world.

*More here17*