The university's noted alumni and faculty include presidents, a pope, EU Commissioners, judges of the Federal Constitutional Court, and Johannes Kepler, a renowned astronomer of the 17th-century Scientific Revolution.

Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560), the prime mover in building the German school system and a chief figure in the Protestant Reformation, helped establish its direction.

Theologian Helmut Thielicke revived postwar Tübingen when he took over a professorship at the reopened theological faculty in 1947, being made administrative head of the university and President of the Chancellor's Conference in 1951.

The university rose to the height of its prominence in the middle of the 19th century with the teachings of poet and civic leader Ludwig Uhland and the Protestant theologian Ferdinand Christian Baur, whose circle, colleagues and students became known as the "Tübingen School", which pioneered the historical-critical analysis of biblical and early Christian texts, an approach generally referred to as "higher criticism".

Starting in the late 1990s at Tübingen, fundamental research on mRNA-based substances (e.g. for cancer treatment and vaccines) was conducted by groups led by H. G. Rammensee and G. Jung.

Religion professor Traugott Konstantin Oesterreich and the mathematician Erich Kamke were forced to take early retirement, probably in both cases the "non-Aryan" origin of their wives.

The university made the headlines in November 2009 when a group of left-leaning students occupied one of the main lecture halls, the Kupferbau, for several days.

Among the more prominent ones in the natural sciences are the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, which focuses on general, cognitive and cellular neurology as well as neurodegeneration, and the Centre for Interdisciplinary Clinical Research, which deals primarily with cell biology in diagnostics and therapy of organ system diseases.

In the liberal arts, the University of Tübingen is noteworthy for having the only faculty of rhetoric in Germany – the department was founded by Walter Jens, an important intellectual and literary critic.

The university also boasts continued pre-eminence in its centuries-old traditions of research in the fields of philosophy, theology and philology.

In addition, the master's degree program "Museum & Collections" of the MUT, with the participation of six humanities and cultural studies subjects, offers the training of students in the field of exhibitions.

The MUT – and thus the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen – is the only university institution in the world to house artefacts with world heritage status, such as the oldest surviving figurative works of art and musical instruments of humanity, mammoth ivory figures and fragments of bone flutes.

The main lending library is located on Wilhelmstraße and consists of several different parts which are connected through corridors and walkways: The university is made up of seven faculties, some of which are subdivided into further departments.

The Cyber Valley initiative has attracted criticism from student groups and activist groups alike, with many protest actions, including building occupations and demonstrations, having taken place decrying both the commercialisation of university research and the involvement of the university with organisations that are engaged in military research.

[30] The university's students make up roughly a third of the total population of Tübingen and the town's culture can seem to be largely dominated by them.

As a result there is a slump of activity during university holidays, particularly over the summer when a large number of otherwise regular events are not happening.

While famous for their parties, public academic lectures and the yearly "Stocherkahn-Rennen" punting-boat race on the Neckar river, some of them are the subject of ongoing controversy surrounding alleged rightwing policial views, leading to strong criticism from leftist groups.

The sports department is located close to the Wilhelmstraße area of university buildings and is served by a number of frequent bus routes.

Cinemas and the town council's public library in particular do not offer discounts for students, and there are only a handful of restaurants which have reduced lunch deals.

During the semester, the Studentenwerk-owned Clubhaus at the centre of the Wilhelmstraße university area hosts the weekly Clubhausfest on Thursday nights.

Notable legal scholars associated with Tübingen include Dieter Medicus, Klaus Hopt and Wolfgang Ernst.

Affiliates in the field of religious studies include many of the most influential theologians of the last centuries such as Pope Benedict XVI, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Eduard Mörike, Miroslav Volv, Paul Tillich, David Strauss and Philip Melanchthon.

Tübingen is therefore sometimes considered as the home of German idealism, a philosophical movement which had a severe impact on modern western thinking.