Doctoral candidatesLargest Number of Doctoral Candidates in Germany at Universität Heidelberg
17 August 2022
8,700 doctoral candidates at Ruperto Carola – Followed by LMU and TU Munich
The largest number of doctoral candidates in Germany is qualifying at Heidelberg University. This has been announced by the Federal Statistical Office (Wiesbaden). Last year there were 8,700 doctoral candidates at Ruperto Carola, followed by 8,400 at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and 7,800 at Technical University of Munich. These three universities consequently account for 12 per cent of all doctoral candidates in Germany.
In 2021, a total of 200,300 candidates were working on a doctorate at German universities – 52 per cent men and 48 per cent women. A good fifth, i.e. 23 per cent (45,600) did not have German nationality. According to the Federal Statistical Office, almost all doctoral candidates were supervised by professors at universities, and only one percent at colleges of art, colleges of theology, universities of education and universities of applied sciences.
The figures on the number of current doctoral candidates stem from a new statistic introduced by the Federal Statistical Office in 2017, covering all individuals working on a doctorate at a university in Germany.