Clusters of Excellence

Clusters of Excellence are an essential component of the Excellence Strategy of the German Federal and State Governments for top university research. Since 2007, they have served to fund internationally competitive research fields at outstanding university locations.

The funding line Clusters of Excellence provides resources for cutting-edge research at German universities, which are primarily used to recruit top international researchers, to train early-career scholars and scientists, for research-related teaching and to build up infrastructures. Currently, 57 Clusters of Excellence are funded throughout Germany. The federal and state governments provide the German Research Foundation (DFG) with approximately 385 million euros per year for this purpose. The funding phase of the Clusters of Excellence is seven years.

Since 2007, the University of Cologne has become increasingly successful in this funding line:

In Germany, the University of Cologne is one of the seven most successful universities in the third funding period (in total, six universities have acquired four Clusters of Excellence and only one university has acquired more than four).