The Johns Hopkins University is a world-leading private university located in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Hopkins University is especially famous for its excellence in medicine, public health, scientific research, international relations, literature, art and many applied scientific research fields. Among the school's alumni, 37 have won the Nobel Prize. According to the National Science Foundation, in fiscal year 2007, Johns Hopkins University received more than $1.5 billion in research funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the U.S. Department of Defense. This makes it the university with the highest annual research funding in the United States for 30 consecutive years. As of 2008, 130 members of the American Academy of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine, and Arts and Sciences are working at Johns Hopkins University. As of 2005, eight Johns Hopkins researchers have received the National Medal of Science.

Hopkins University is the nation's first research university with the following goals: "To encourage research and the advancement of independent scholars so that they can advance the sciences they pursue and the societies in which they live through their excellence." The founders of Johns Hopkins wanted to ditch the stereotypes of American colleges and create a new research university focused on expanding knowledge, graduate education and encouraging a research ethos.