Prof. Dr. Paul Pauli

The President is the legal representative of the University and the chairman of the University Board. He is responsible for initiating strategies for the further development of the University and formulating the principles that underpin the University’s strategic objectives.

Paul Pauli’s objectives for the University of Würzburg

‘To build a culture of trust, appreciation and constructive communication that will give the members of our University a feeling of unity and belonging and will help us work together as a team to meet the challenges ahead.’ This is one of the objectives Paul Pauli wants to achieve during his term of office as President of JMU. He also attaches great importance to ‘further enhancing our reputation for excellence in research, taking the specific requirements of the individual academic disciplines into account and encouraging interdisciplinarity, as well as to maintaining our commitment to delivering excellent teaching.’

Paul Pauli has held a variety of roles at the University of Würzburg – managing director of his Institute, dean of studies, dean, DFG liaison officer – in which he says he was able to get to know and appreciate the culture at JMU. As a researcher, Paul Pauli has successfully collaborated with colleagues from the disciplines of medicine, biology, engineering and the humanities and has served, among other roles, as leader of a research training group and spokesman for Würzburg of a collaborative research centre.

‘What motivated me to run for President of the University of Würzburg was that experience as well as my accomplishments and my ability to bring together teams and spark their enthusiasm for new projects,’ Mr Pauli said.

Biography

Paul Pauli was born in Biberach an der Riß in 1960. From 1979 to 1986, he studied psychology at the University of Tübingen and later held positions as a doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich and as a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Medical Psychology and Psychosomatics at the Technical University of Munich.

Paul Pauli completed his doctorate in 1991 and earned his Habilitation in medical psychology at the Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioural Neurobiology at the University of Tübingen in 1997. From 2000 to 2001, he held the Chair of Clinical Psychology Research at the University of Southampton, England. Since 2001, Paul Pauli has held the Chair of Psychology I, Biological Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy at JMU. His research interests include anxiety disorders, pain and addiction.