Germany’s Excellence Strategy: 143 Draft Proposals for New Clusters of Excellence
Start of pre-selection in second round of competition / reviews to be carried out from the end of August to mid-November / decision by Committee of Experts on proposal submission to be announced on 1 February 2024
Start of pre-selection in second round of competition / reviews to be carried out from the end of August to mid-November / decision by Committee of Experts on proposal submission to be announced on 1 February 2024
Pre-selection for the new Clusters of Excellence under the Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state governments can now begin: with the submission deadline for draft proposals having passed, there are now 143 projects at German universities applying under the Clusters of Excellence funding line.
The 143 draft proposals were received by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) in Bonn by the deadline of 31 May. The DFG administers the competitive process for funding according to the administrative agreement concluded between the German federal government and the federal states. The total of 143 draft proposals is only three less than the number of non-binding letters of intent previously submitted by the universities in February 2023.
A total of 59 universities from all 16 federal states are participating in the preliminary round as applicants with at least one draft proposal. Of the 143 draft proposals, 55 were submitted by several universities in a consortium, including 14 draft proposals submitted jointly by three universities. 80 percent of the draft proposals envisage the participation of non-university partners. The majority of the new concepts are interdisciplinary: nearly half the projects (64 draft proposals, or 45 percent) describe themselves as belonging to more than one scientific discipline. 31 percent of the draft proposals see their thematic focus in the life sciences, 28 percent in the humanities and social sciences; 21 percent of the projects are predominantly rooted in the engineering sciences and 20 percent in the natural sciences.
From the end of August to mid-November of this year, a total of 21 international and interdisciplinary panels will review the draft proposals received according to scientific quality criteria. The reviews will be held via video conference. The relevant dates and participants for the latter will now be determined by the DFG Head Office based on the draft proposals received, and the applicants will be informed immediately afterwards. For the first time, applicants will now also be able to engage directly in dialogue about their proposal with the review panel during the draft review process.
Based on the results of the reviews, the Committee of Experts – which also includes international members – will decide on 1 February 2024 which projects can go on to submit a proposal. The Committee of Experts is made up of 39 researchers representing the entire spectrum of research areas: in addition to interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research expertise in many instances, they also have outstanding experience of higher education management, academic teaching or at the interface between research and business.
The new proposals to be prepared after the Committee of Experts’ decision will subsequently compete with the renewal proposals submitted by the 57 clusters which have been in receipt of funding since 2019. At this stage of the competitive process, reviews are initially carried out by international panels according to scientific quality criteria. Based on the findings of the latter, the Excellence Commission – which is made up of the scientific members of the Committee of Experts and also the federal and state ministers responsible for research – will finally decide in May 2025 which Clusters of Excellence are to be newly established and which will continue to receive funding. Funding then starts on 1 January 2026 and runs for a period of seven years. A total of up to 70 Clusters of Excellence can receive funding, for which the German federal and state governments provide a total of up to €539 million per year.
For the universities, success in the current competition under the Clusters of Excellence funding line is also a prerequisite for being able to participate in the next round of calls for proposals under the Universities of Excellence funding line: in order to submit a proposal under the latter, a university must have at least two Clusters of Excellence. University Consortia of Excellence comprising two or three universities are required to have at least three Clusters of Excellence. The Universities of Excellence funding line is administered by the German Science and Humanities Council (Wissenschaftsrat, WR): here, funding decisions on new proposals are made in September 2026.
Further information
Media contact:
- Marco Finetti
Head of Press and Public Relations
Tel. +49 228 885-2230
marco.finetti@dfg.d
Programme contact at the DFG Head Office:
- Dr. Christine Petry
Head of the Excellence Strategy and Research Impulses Group
Tel. +49 228 885-2355
christine.petry@dfg.d
For detailed information, materials and schedule, see also: