What is Germany’s Excellence Strategy, and how are clusters of excellence chosen?

In a nutshell

A cluster of excellence is a large research collaboration at one university or a group of universities, funded for seven years at a time with 3 to 10 million euros a year. From 2026 to 2032, 70 clusters share about 539 million euros a year. They are selected by the DFG through international peer review, and the final decision is taken by the Excellence Commission, in which researchers sit together with the federal and state science ministers.

A university that holds at least two clusters (a consortium of universities: three) can apply to become a university of excellence and receive money for its overall strategy. From 1 January 2027, 15 institutions hold that status (status as of 3 November 2026). The University of Bonn is one of them and, with eight clusters, has more than any other German university.

Two funding lines, two organisations

The Excellence Strategy rests on an administrative agreement between the federal government and the 16 states, dated 16 June 2016 and updated on 4 November 2022 and 10 July 2026. Its aim, in the words of the programme’s own site, is to strengthen top-level research in internationally competitive fields, to strengthen universities as institutions and to advance the German higher education system. It continues an earlier programme, the Excellence Initiative.

The work is split between two organisations. The DFG, the German Research Foundation in Bonn, runs the funding line for clusters of excellence. The German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat) runs the line for universities of excellence. How the DFG itself works is described on The German Research Foundation.

What a cluster of excellence is

A cluster brings together researchers working on one large research field, often across disciplines and across institutions. Universities, or consortia of universities in Germany, apply for it; partners such as research institutes can take part. According to the DFG’s programme information, each cluster receives an annual budget of 3 to 10 million euros. On top of that comes a programme allowance of 22 percent of the project funds spent, to cover indirect costs, and a university allowance of up to 1 million euros a year.

Clusters are funded for seven years and can be renewed once, so a cluster can run for up to two seven-year periods. In the first period, from 2019 to 2025, 57 clusters received about 385 million euros a year. In the second, from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2032, there are 70 clusters with about 539 million euros a year. The federal government pays 75 percent of that money and the state in which the university is located pays 25 percent.

How 70 clusters were chosen out of 143 ideas

The second competition shows how long the road is. New consortia first sent letters of intent, by 1 February 2023. By 31 May 2023 the DFG had received 143 draft proposals, which international reviewers assessed in the autumn. On 1 February 2024, 41 of them were invited to submit a full proposal. Existing clusters applying for renewal skipped the draft stage and went straight to full proposals.

By 22 August 2024 there were 98 full proposals from 47 universities: 41 new and 57 renewals. They were reviewed between November 2024 and February 2025, and on 22 May 2025 the Excellence Commission, meeting in Bonn, selected 70 clusters: 45 renewals and 25 new ones. Even the successful applicants did not receive everything they asked for: the requested sums were reduced by about 24 percent. According to the Council of Science and Humanities, the decisions were based solely on scientific quality, as judged in international peer review.

Who decides

Two bodies take the decisions. The international Committee of Experts has 39 voting members, researchers with track records across all disciplines. It is chaired by the head of the Council of Science and Humanities and the President of the DFG, neither of whom has a vote. It sets the criteria, evaluates the proposals and makes recommendations.

The Excellence Commission consists of the Committee of Experts plus the federal and state ministers responsible for research, and it takes the final funding decision on the basis of the experts’ recommendations. This mirrors the principle described on From proposal to decision: the state, which provides the money, sits at the table, but the assessment of science is left to researchers.

Universities of excellence

The second line funds whole universities rather than single research fields. The money supports an institutional strategy that can cover research, teaching, infrastructure, technology transfer, governance, staff and internationalisation. To apply, a university needs at least two clusters of excellence; a consortium of universities needs three. The funding is permanent, but each university is evaluated every seven years, and one that no longer meets the conditions loses its place.

That rule had real consequences in 2026. From 2020 to 2026, ten universities and one consortium shared about 148 million euros a year. On 11 March 2026 the Excellence Commission confirmed ten of the eleven for a further seven years, from 2027 to 2033; the University of Konstanz no longer had the required number of clusters. Eleven new applications had been submitted by 12 November 2025, and on 2 October 2026 the Commission selected five more institutions, three universities and two consortia, among them the University of Cologne and the Ruhr Innovation Lab of Ruhr University Bochum and TU Dortmund. From 1 January 2027, 15 institutions, including three consortia, share about 208 million euros a year (status as of 3 November 2026). A single university is expected to receive 10 to 15 million euros a year and a consortium 15 to 28 million.

Why Bonn stands out

The University of Bonn won six clusters in the first round and kept its status as a university of excellence in March 2026. In the second round all six were renewed and two new ones were added, so from 1 January 2026 it has eight clusters, more than any other university in Germany. According to the university, this brings about 40 million euros a year to Bonn (status as of 3 November 2026).

The six renewed clusters are ImmunoSensation² (the immune system), the Hausdorff Center for Mathematics, ECONtribute (economics), ML4Q (quantum information), PhenoRob (agriculture of the future) and the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies. The two new ones are Color meets Flavor, which studies the basic properties of matter and looks for signs of physics beyond the Standard Model with TU Dortmund and the University of Siegen, and Our Dynamic Universe, run with the University of Cologne, the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Forschungszentrum Jülich and DLR. The university reports that in 2019–2025 it received about 225 million euros from the Excellence Strategy, 120 million of it for clusters, and created about 400 new posts. More about the university is on Institutes & Facilities; why so many funders sit in the same city is explained in Why are Germany’s big research funders based in Bonn?

Sources

Sources checked on: 3 November 2026