topic Science

Initiative for Excellence

The continuation of the Initiative for Excellence will provide a secure basis for world-class research at universities. Successful projects that were started in the first two rounds can now be continued and new projects for the development of world-class research can be realized.

Second programme phase until 2017 agreed

By promoting top-class university research under the Initiative for Excellence, the Federal Government is trying to establish internationally visible research beacons in Germany. At the Education Summit on 22 October 2008, the heads of the Federal Government and the Länder agreed to continue the Initiative for Excellence as part of the Qualification Initiative for Germany. On 4 June 2009, the Federal Chancellor and the Minister-Presidents of the Länder signed an agreement on a continuation of the Initiative for Excellence which had been commissioned by the specialist ministers of the Joint Science Conference (GWK) and approved at its special meeting on 22 April 2009. Despite the financial crisis and the new debt incurred by the state, educational opportunities for young people are being kept open. After all, investing significantly more in education and research can help secure jobs for qualified workers.

In order to give new applications and follow-up applications from the first two rounds an equal chance, the funding volume will be increased by 30% to approximately €2.7 billion until 2017. A decision on the new and follow-up applications will be taken by summer 2012 at the latest.

In order to be able to take the special features of smaller universities and research departments into account, funding bands for the three different funding lines have been proposed: between €1 million and €2.5 million per year for research schools (approximately €60 million per year in total), between €3 million and €8 million per year for excellence clusters (a total of €292 million per year), and a total of approximately €142 million per year for future concepts. The most successful aspects of the Initiative for Excellence will be maintained: the science-driven competitive procedure, which has received great international recognition, as well as the structure with three funding lines (research schools, excellence clusters and future concepts). The Initiative for Excellence is to be evaluated by an international expert committee in 2016.
Initiative for Excellence to Promote Institutions of Higher Education

The Initiative for Excellence achieved extraordinarily positive results after a relatively short period of time. This is substantiated by the report on the Initiative that was issued by the Joint Commission of the DFG and German Council of Science and Humanities in November 2008. The Initiative for Excellence has triggered a number of structure- and profile-building developments at German universities. It has created research-friendly structures and promoted interdisciplinary cooperation within universities, between different universities, and between universities non-university research institutions and the private sector. Young scientists in particular have benefited from the Initiative for Excellence. The Initiative has also promoted equal opportunities and measures to help balance work and family life. Not least, the Initiative for Excellence has made an important contribution to the internationalization of German universities and increased their attractiveness to students and scientists from Germany and abroad. Approximately 4,200 scientists have been recruited in the funded projects, about 25% of them from other countries.

A total of €1.9 billion will be available to universities in the first two selection rounds between 2006 and 2012, 75 percent of which will be provided by the Federal Government. Specifically, the Initiative for Excellence competition comprises three project-oriented funding lines, which are to be continued:

• Research Schools for young scientists offer structured PhD programmes in excellent research environments and in broad areas of science. In the first two rounds, 39 research schools will receive an average of €5.7 million each for a period of five years.
• Excellence clusters have the aim of establishing internationally visible and competitive research beacons at universities which can cooperate with non-university research establishments, universities of applied sciences and the private sector and which offer an excellent environment for young scientists. The 37 clusters selected in the two current rounds of funding are receiving an average of €31.8 million each. 
• The funding of "Future concepts for top-class research at universities" has the aim of further enhancing the profile of nine selected universities. To be eligible, a university has to have at least one excellence cluster, one research school and a convincing overall strategy for improving its research profile. The total budget for this line of funding is €210 million p.a. So far, nine universities have presented concept proposals that have met with the approval of the international panel of experts.

The universities are selected by an independent panel (the Joint Commission of the German Research Association and the Science Council), which is mainly made up of scientists from other countries. The selection is made under the direction of the German Research Association, which is supported by the Science Council.

The selection procedure

In the first two selection rounds, a two-step procedure was applied:

In the first round of funding, the Joint Commission received 319 outline proposals from 74 universities. It selected 90 proposals from 36 universities in January 2006 and invited the applicants to submit full proposals. The comparative evaluation of the 88 full proposals received for all three lines of funding took place between June and early August 2006. After consultations in the Joint Commission of the DFG and the Science Council, the grants committee reached a final decision about the applications on 13 October 2006.

A similar approach was used in the second round of funding, which was published on 10 April 2006. A total of 123 outline proposals for excellence clusters, 118 for research schools and 20 for future concepts were submitted, both new applications and revised applications from the first round of funding. The experts selected 44 universities in the "research schools" funding line, 40 universities in the "excellence clusters" funding line and 8 universities in the "future concepts" funding line and invited the applicants to submit full proposals. On 19 October 2007, one year after the first funding decision, the grants committee reached a decision about funding in the second round.

The same selection process will be used in the continuation of the Initiative for Excellence. Calls for new and follow-up proposals in all three lines of funding will be published together. In other words, there will be a two-step selection process for new applications (outlines and then full proposals) and a one-step selection process for follow-up applications (full proposals).