With three approved Clusters of Excellence, TUD takes aim at the title University of Excellence

Kim-Astrid Magister

On September 27, the DFG [Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation)] announced its decision on the new Clusters of Excellence. As the day ended, TU Dresden was thrilled to receive three Clusters of Excellence. Fifty-seven Clusters were approved nationwide. It also became clear that TU Dresden will be the only university in eastern Germany that can remain in the competition for the title of University of Excellence, as the qualifying criteria for this title is to have at least two Clusters of Excellence.

The days and hours prior to this decision strained the nerves of all those involved in TUD’s six cluster applications. The teams had worked hard on their applications for two years and as the decision was made public in the afternoon, ecstatic joy and deepest disappointment were felt side by side.

From January 2017, the new Clusters of Excellence will be: PoL – Physics of Life, CeTI – Center for Tactile Internet with Human-in-the-Loop and ct.qmat  – Complexity and Topology in Quantum Matter, which was applied for in conjunction with the University of Würzburg.

The two existing Clusters of Excellence, the CRTD (Center für Regenerative Therapies) and cfaed (Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden) will continue thanks to funding from the Free State of Saxony, TUD and its Faculty of Medicine, so that TUD now offers five internationally outstanding research clusters.

For the proposed clusters, which, despite their high quality, were not funded due to the fierce competition, TUD will consider whether and how they might be realized through other funding programs.

Building on the momentum of the cluster decision, the application for Excellence status continues. The competition is immense – a total of 17 universities and two university federations are in the running for the title. Moreover, the schedule is tight. The application is already due on December 10, TU Dresden will host the international appraisers in February 2019 and the decision will be made as to which university will be funded as a University of Excellence on July 19, 2019. And nerves will again be strained to breaking point.

For more information on the excellence strategy:
https://tu-dresden.de/tu-dresden/profil/exzellenz

This article was published in the Dresdner Universitätsjournal 15/2018 on Ocotber 2, 2018. You can download the whole newspaper as a PDF file for free here. Please contact doreen.liesch@tu-dresden.de to order the Universitätsjournal as a printed newpaper or as a PDF file. For more information, please visit: universitaetsjournal.de.