A large number of universities have already prepared funding proposals for excellence clusters and graduate schools and now have the opportunity to compete to turn their visions for the future into reality.
The General Assembly has welcomed the fact that members from all parties on the German Parliament's budget committee had approved funding of the Excellence Initiative for the first five years.
The General Assembly appealed to the German states not to fund the Excellence Initiative from existing university budgets but to actually provide additional funding. The core funding has to ensure that the universities are able to compete. The launch of full economic costing is a key step in this direction.
The members of the General Assembly trust that the DFG, in cooperation with the German Science Council, will guarantee fair and scientifically based competition.