General Information
The German federal and state governments passed the Excellence Initiative on 23 June 2005. The aim of the Excellence Initiative is to make Germany a more attractive research location, making it more internationally competitive and focussing attention on the outstanding achievements of German universities and the German scientific community.
Between 2006 and 2011 the DFG will receive a total of €1.9 billion in additional funding for the three funding lines of the initiative:
- Graduate schools to promote young scientists
- Clusters of Excellence to promote top-level research
- Institutional strategies to promote top-level university research
The DFG is jointly responsible for running the initiative together with the German Science Council, which is primarily responsible for the third funding line (institutional strategies).
Following the funding decisions announced in October 2006 and October 2007, there are now 39 Graduate schools, 37 clusters of excellence and 9 institutional strategies to promote top-level university research receiving funding.
The funding period for each round is five years. The precise conditions for receiving funding were defined in accordance with the criteria specified by the federal and state governments.
There were two calls for proposals inviting universities to submit funding proposals. The involvement of non-university research institutions was expressly welcomed. The proposal process was a two-stage process (draft proposals followed by full proposals). The draft proposals and full proposals were reviewed by international peer review panels. To be eligible for the third funding line (institutional strategies) an institution had to have been granted at least one cluster of excellence and at least one graduate school.
In Juni 2009 the federal and state governments decided to continue the Excellence Initiative beyond 2012.
Additional Information
- Pressemappe der Pressekonferenz zur Exzellenzinitiative am 2. März 2011
- Press Release: First Decisions in the Second Phase of the Excellence Initiative by the German Federal and State Governments
- Fixtures (available in German only) (pdf | 40 KB)
- Chart of the Decision-making Procedure (available in German only) (pdf | 203 KB)
- Excellence Initiative Grants Committee
- Website of the German Science Council
