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Initiative for Excellence Competition – Top-class Universities for Germany

The Initiative for Excellence is meant to improve the standard of higher education institutions by means of three different funding lines:

  • Postgraduate schools for young scientists
  • Clusters of excellence between universities and science organisations
  • Future concepts for top-class research at universities.

The Initiative for Excellence Competition will cover 1.9 billion Euro in total. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research has now approved the first 714 million Euro. The German Research Foundation (DFG) and the “Wissenschaftsrat“ (Council for Science) have received the respective allocations for the first programme phase until 2010. The Federal Government pays 75% of the costs, 25% will be covered by the „Länder“ in which the selected universities reside. Over 90 eligible German universities sent in more than 400 expressions of interest. The project proposals will be evaluated by a committee of international academics this autumn.

Initiative for Excellence Competition - Top-class Universities for Germany