On 27 and 28 September 2017, the Committee of Experts for the Excellence Strategy made the first funding decisions under the Clusters of Excellence funding line and selected 88 draft proposals(Download) (in German only) to proceed to the proposal submission stage. A total of 195 draft proposals were submitted to the DFG by 63 universities; these were reviewed by internationally composed panels according to scientific quality criteria.

By 21 February 2018, 41 universities had submitted 88 proposals to the DFG under the Clusters of Excellence funding line. Of these, 26 proposals were submitted by multiple universities, including three joint proposals involving three universities each. Nearly half of the projects submitted built directly on Clusters of Excellence or Graduate Schools that had received funding under the previous Excellence Initiative of the federal and state governments. 

The funding decisions for the Clusters of Excellence under the Excellence Strategy were announced on 27 September 2018. The Excellence Commission – composed of the international Committee of Experts and the federal and state ministers of science and research – selected  57 Clusters of Excellence(Download) (in German only) from the 88 proposals submitted, with a funding duration of seven years. Those Clusters of Excellence and Graduate Schools that were funded under the Excellence Initiative but did not continue into the Excellence Strategy received completion funding for the period up until the end of October 2019.

By 21 February 2018, the German Science and Humanities Council (Wissenschaftsrat, WR) had received 26 declarations of intent to submit proposals under the Universities of Excellence funding line. The decisions on the Clusters of Excellence made in September 2018 resulted in 19 concepts being approved for the submission of a proposal under the Universities of Excellence funding line. 19 proposals had been submitted by 10 December 2018 – 17 by individual universities and two joint proposals by university consortia. The Excellence Commission announced its funding decision on 19 July 2019, approving 10 Universities of Excellence and one University Consortium of Excellence(externer Link) (in German only).

Additional facts and figures on the first funding period are to be found in various DFG publications under Information Letters and Press Releases(interner Link).