Bonn is Germany’s Preeminent University of Excellence

We have been one of eleven German Universities of Excellence since the summer of 2019. And we are the only German university in the Excellence Contest conducted by the federal government and German states¹ (as part of their Excellence Strategy—ExStra) to receive funding for six Clusters of Excellence. This makes us the most successful University of Excellence in their Excellence Strategy. Find out more about the planning for our future as a University of Excellence.

News from the Excellence Strategy

Top-class award for mathematician²

The mathematician Dr. Rajula Srivastava from the Cluster of Excellence Hausdorff Center for Mathematics at the University of Bonn has received a Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize from the Breakthrough Prize Foundation for her outstanding research achievements. The award is endowed with 50,000 dollars. The ceremony took place in Los Angeles.

Mathematician investigating stochastic processes³

How does water move through a filter with coffee? This question is not so easy to answer, as neighboring areas in the moist coffee powder influence each other. How the hot water moves through the roasted powder is also governed by stochastic processes. Answers are provided by what are known as “percolation models,” which mathematician Dr. Alexis Prévost is investigating. He joined the University of Bonn from the University of Geneva and now leads an Emmy Noether group. It is being provided with up to 1.3 million euros of funding by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

⁴

PhenoRob Cluster of Excellence Invites You to Attend a Career Fair⁴

The PhenoRob Cluster of Excellence Career Fair is all about connecting the artificial intelligence (AI) and agriculture experts of tomorrow with high-profile non-academic employers. Students, doctoral candidates and graduates of the University of Bonn are invited to expand their network of professional contacts on May 9 from 1 pm to 6 pm.

⁵

Lena Funcke from the University of Bonn Awarded the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize⁵

Clausius Junior Professor Dr. Lena Funcke from the University of Bonn is one of ten researchers to receive the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize from the German Research Foundation (DFG). The prize, each endowed with €200,000, is considered by the DFG to be the most important award in Germany for researchers in the early stages of their careers.

News from our Clusters and TRAs ⁶

This is what the "Excellence Strategy" is all about

The Excellence Strategy of the Federal Government and German States was adopted in 2016 with the long-term aim of enhancing Germany’s standing and international competitiveness as a location for science and scholarship; implementation commenced in 2018. The associated grant program successfully rolled out in the earlier Excellence Initiative (of 2005-2017) forms the funding basis for the process of ongoing development at German universities. Roughly half a billion euros in funding is budgeted annually, three-quarters of which are put up by the federal government and one quarter by the German states. The goal: promoting research excellence by heightening the profile of the national higher education system and strengthening collaboration between its member institutions. The Excellence Strategy provides for two grant programs for which universities can apply:

What is a “Cluster of Excellence”?

Clusters of Excellence are formed as an instrument for providing project-specific funding to universities and university consortia for research in fields of importance in a context of international competition. In September 2018 the decision was made to allocate funding for applications connected to the University of Bonn for the current grant period, out of a total of 57 approved projects. The annual funding budgeted for Clusters of Excellence ranges between three and ten million euros, granted for an initial seven-year period. Both new and follow-on applications may be approved at the end of this period, subject to the limit of two funding periods for Clusters of Excellence.

What is a “University of Excellence”?

The grant program for Universities of Excellence is in place as a means to empower individual institutions and university alliances or consortia to make further gains as international research leaders. Annual funding of between 10 and 15 million euros is available for individual universities, and up to 28 million euros for university consortia.
A new aspect to this grant program now is that universities of supra-regional stature are eligible for joint funding from both the federal and state governments on a non-temporary basis. For Universities of Excellence the condition applies that they must successfully pass a research evaluation every seven years. Decisions regarding funding for new and ongoing projects are to be made in 2026.

The University of Bonn's Future Concept

The Future Concept outlined by the University of Bonn was effective in convincing the evaluating judges to select the institution as one of eleven Universities (and university alliances) of Excellence. At the heart of this Future Concep⁷t lies a set of fundamental objectives: promoting transdisciplinary research, through the formation of Transdisciplinary Research Areas (TRAs)⁸; “We invest in people”—creating high-profile professorships to attract scholars of excellence across the range of qualification levels⁹; “We foster networks”—forming and strengthening research alliances; and “We create impact” by furthering knowledge transfer and communication within the research community.

Eine Wissenschaftlerin und ein Wissenschaftler arbeiten hinter einer Glasfassade und mischen Chemikalien mit Großgeräten.

Transdisciplinary Research Areas

The six existing Transdisciplinary Research Areas (TRAs) have touchpoints across the entire spectrum of academic inquiry at the University.

Explore TRAs ⁸

The ‘Future Concept’

Our strategy to deliver excellence in research and teaching is summarily expressed in the slogan: “We invest in people, we foster networks, we create impact.

Learn more ⁷