Hochschulen: Millionenförderung für neue Exzellenz-Unis

The German government announced on Tuesday that three additional universities and two university alliances will be granted the title of "Excellence University" and receive multi-million euro funding. Federal Research Minister Dorothee Bär and Niedersachsen's Science Minister Falko Mohrs, deputy chair of the Joint Science Conference (GWK), made the announcement at a press conference in Bonn.

The universities involved are Freiburg, Jena, and Cologne. The Rhein-Main Universities in Darmstadt, Mainz, and Frankfurt am Main, as well as TU Dortmund and the University of Bochum (the "Ruhr Innovation Lab"), are also newly eligible for the funding. For individual universities, the title comes with annual subsidies of up to 15 million euros, while alliances can receive up to 28 million euros.

The Excellence title is reviewed every seven years. Nine universities and a university alliance are already receiving special funding as Excellence Universities: Aachen, Bonn, Dresden, Hamburg, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, and Tübingen. Munich, with the Technical University and Ludwig Maximilian University, is represented twice, along with an alliance of the three Berlin universities Freie Universität, Humboldt-Universität, and Technische Universität.

Their funding was extended for another seven years in the spring. In addition to the funding as Excellence Universities, there is also support for so-called clusters under the so-called Excellence Strategy. This concerns special research projects at individual or multiple universities jointly. Last year, projects at 43 universities in 13 federal states were selected for this funding.

Only those who can demonstrate a certain number of clusters have a chance of becoming an Excellence University. Each year, the Bund and the Länder provide 687 million euros for the Excellence Strategy. 75 percent of the funding comes from the Bund, 25 percent from the Land in which the institution is located. The Excellence competitions were launched years ago to boost the international reputation and image of German institutions. According to the Federal Statistical Office, there are a total of 421 universities in Germany.