TU Dresden will participate in the upcoming round of the federal and state Excellence Initiative in both funding lines: applications for the clusters and for the title “University of Excellence”, TU Dresden rector Prof. Hans Müller-Steinhagen stated during a press interview: “ With our status as an University of Excellence, two Clusters of Excellence and a Graduate School, our reputation as a university strong in research and our outstanding cooperation with research and culture institutions within the DRESDEN-concept alliance, we see a great opportunity of retaining the status of a University of Excellence.”

At the same time he considers the competition to be the toughest yet. “We need an inspiring vision, a clear and focused strategy, with fitting structures, systems and processes and a spirit of cooperation, that shall spur us on as a university and which is palpable in all our actions and offers.”

Since the Federal-Länder agreement of 22^nd April, TUD can assume that the currently funded Graduate School DIGS-BB, the two Clusters of Excellence - cfaed and CRTD - as well as the Institutional Strategy will receive a bridging financing for a period of two years i.e. until the end of 2019.

The new round of the Institutional Strategy will continue to deal with the promotion of cutting-edge research at universities and the strengthening of the universities and Germany as a science location in the international competition. There will be two funding lines: Clusters of Excellence and Universities of Excellence. The annual financial volume is to be 533 million Euros. Eight to twelve Universities of Excellence will receive annual funding of 148 million Euros. This means, that each university which has been awarded the title of “University of Excellence” might hope to receive 10 to 15 million Euros in funding annually. In the future, the Universities of Excellence are to be evaluated every seven years. One prerequisite for funding as a University of Excellence is that the university must have at least two Clusters of Excellence.

The timetable for the new round of the Excellence Initiative states that by April 2017 the draft proposals for the Clusters of Excellence are to be submitted. For cluster proposals which have been assessed favourably, full proposals have to be worked out by February 2018. The decision regarding the Clusters of Excellence is scheduled for December 2018, so that the Excellence Cluster can start at the beginning of 2019. The full proposals for the Excellence concepts are to be submitted in February 2019.

The funding line for the Clusters of Excellence as well as for the Universities of Excellence shall not be geared exclusively towards research but also, research-orientated teaching, research infrastructures as well as idea and knowledge transfer are to eligible for funding, provided that this supports the goal of cutting-edge research.

The responsibility for the overall application coordination for the Excellence Initiative lies with the rector of TU Dresden.

For the Cluster of Excellence funding line, the two existing clusters cfaed and CRTD will enter the competition by submitting renewal proposals.  Furthermore, TU Dresden will shortly make a decision as to which further projects shall compile draft proposals.

Media Inquiries:
Kim-Astrid Magister
Tel. +49 (0) 351 463-32398