The Excellence Commission consisting of 39 international experts and the federal ministers has selected 10 universities and a university consortium of excellence, including the Technical University of Munich and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität of Munich.
The RWTH Aachen University, the Berlin University Alliance, the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, the TU Dresden, the Universität Hamburg, the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, the Karlsruher Institute of Technologie (KIT), the University of Konstanz and the University of Tübingen can also call themselves excellent after a three-year competition.
"After securing this latest accomplishment, I will be pleased to hand over the office of president to my successor, Thomas Hofmann, on October 1," said President Wolfgang A. Herrmann, who has been in office for 24 years. "Our far-reaching and consistent reform efforts over the past two decades have proved that we were on the right track. We have set new standards in many areas, and are now positioned among the leaders and ready for the future."
LMU Munich has been funded within the Excellence Strategy since 2006. "LMU’s renewed success in the demanding and highly competitive Excellence Strategy competition is really fantastic," says LMU President Professor Bernd Huber. "Once more, this result proves that LMU holds an outstanding position among German universities.
The awarded universities each receive between 10 and 15 million euros annually. After seven years, the funding can be continued after successful evaluation.
The Excellence Strategy consists of two parts, so-called funding lines: The Clusters of Excellence and the Universities of Excellence. In autumn 2018, four joint projects of the TU Munich and LMU were awarded in the first funding line. Thereby, the two Bavarian universities had a good chance of being awarded the title of Excellence Universities. A total of 57 clusters of excellence were selected for funding from 1 January 2019.
The federal government and the 16 federal states are providing an annual total budget of 533 Mio. Euro. 75 percent of the funding is provided by the federal government and 25 percent by the respective state governments. The Clusters of Excellence will receive around 385 million euros a year. The Excellence Universities are funded with a total of approximately 148 million euros per year.
The list of universities of excellence, clusters of excellence and further information can be found at www.dfg.de/en and www.wissenschaftsrat.de.