Excellent Research.

The German federal and state governments enacted the Excellence Initiative in June 2005 with the goal of consolidating Germany’s position as a center for research in the long term, enhancing its international competitiveness, and training future leaders for universities and research institutions. Organized as a competition among all German universities, the initiative consisted initially of the three funding lines Institutional Strategies, Clusters of Excellence, and Graduate Schools, for which a total of 4.6 billion euros was made available in the course of two funding periods (2005–2012, 2010–2017).

Following a positive evaluation, the federal and state governments enacted the follow-up program to the Excellence Initiative on 16 June 2016. Now called the Excellence Strategy, the program consists only of the two funding lines Clusters of Excellence and Universities of Excellence and is set to run for an indefinite period. A total of 533 million euros per year will be made available for the Excellence Strategy starting in 2019.

The University of Freiburg participated successfully in the Excellence Initiative from the beginning and used the funding to establish and develop central research structures that prepare the university for future challenges and enhance its attractiveness. The University of Freiburg also aims to submit proposals for the Excellence Strategy.

For more information on the Excellence Initiative/Excellence Strategy, visit the University of Freiburg’s Excellence Portal.