Professor Stefan Jurga conducted interdisciplinary scientific research in physical, chemical, biological, and medical sciences focusing on nanoscience and nanotechnology. His research concerned nanomaterials, nanostructures, and nanocomposites for multimodal applications in materials science, biomedicine, and environmental protection. The main research interests of Professor Jurga were focused on structure and dynamics in soft matter (colloids, surfactants, block copolymers, miktoarms, and dendrimer polymers, nanoparticles in confined space, biomaterials), studied by NMR imaging, NMR, X-ray scattering methods (SAXS, WAXS), electron microscopy (TEM, SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), optical microscopy, NMR relaxation and diffusion, spectroscopy dielectric, FTIR spectroscopy, rheology, computer modeling techniques. He published over 270 publications in the interdisciplinary database of Journal Citation Reports (JCR). He was the editor of The Journal of Analytical Science and Technology (JAST) and a co-editor of the "RNA Technologies" series published by Springer Verlag. Since 2005, he was the head of the International Summer School of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance in Zakopane, in which lecturers and participants from over 20 European and world countries take part. Since 2011 he organized annual international conferences on nanoscience and nanotechnology in Poznań, known under the current name NanoTech Poland.
 
Professor Jurga promoted over 60 Masters of Physics, over 20 Doctors, and patronized 10 habilitation theses, three of whom received professorship titles. He managed dozens of research projects and conducted extensive scientific cooperation with many research centers in the country and abroad. He was, among others Visiting Professors at Cornell University (Ithaca), North Carolina State University, Raleigh (USA), as well as the University of South Africa in Pretoria (South Africa). Professor Jurga was a laureate of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Max Planck Foundation as a scholarship holder at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz (Germany). He worked at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (USA), at the Józef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana (Slovenia), as well as at other international scientific institutions.
 
From 1990 to 2002, Professor Stefan Jurga was the Vice-Rector and the Rector of the Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań (AMU). He created the interdisciplinary NanoBioMedical Center AMU, of which he was the Director from 2010 to 2022. During his term of office, he significantly developed University, contributing to creating the university campus at Morasko, the establishment of Collegium Polonicum in Słubice, and the European College in Gniezno. Prof. Jurga, from 2005 to 2007, was appointed as the Under Secretary and Secretary of State in the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. From 1999 to 2002, he was the chairman of the Conference of Rectors of Polish Universities and the vice-chairman of the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland (CRASP). He was a member of the International Scientific Society Groupement AMPERE board, and from 2002 to 2012, he was its vice president. He was also the president of the Association of European Universities "Santander Group". He was a member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences, an honorary doctorate of the University of Warmia and Mazury. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the University of Gdańsk and many medals from other European universities. He was also a laureate of the Foundation for Polish Science in the International Doctoral Projects program. He had multiple high state decorations and numerous regional distinctions, including the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, the Commander's Cross of the Order of Saint Sylvester, the Medal of the National Education Commission, and the Medal of the 100th Anniversary of Regaining Independence (2019)