Excellence strategy: Berlin to participate with 5 cluster

© Berlin University Alliance / Matthias Heyde

27.05.2025
Excellence strategy: Berlin to participate with 5 clusters in the future

Brain City Berlin

The decision has been made: Brain City Berlin is entering the next round of Excellence funding from the Federal and State governments with five research clusters. Out of 98 nationwide applications, 70 were selected for the second phase of the Excellence Strategy – and thus the maximum number of projects. The Clusters of excellence will be funded for a total of seven years from January 2026.

As the German Research Foundation (DFG) announced last week, three renewal applications and two new applications from Berlin universities were successfully accepted in the process. The spectrum of selected projects ranges from natural and life sciences to social sciences. The projects Math+ – Berlin Mathematics Research Center (Application: Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin), NeuroCure – Comprehensive Approaches to Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders (Application: Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin for Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin) and SCRIPTS – Contestations of the Liberal Script (Application: Freie Universität Berlin) will be continued. The new applications to receive funding are the Center for Chiral Electronics CCE (Application: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Freie Universität Berlin, Universität Regensburg) and ImmoPrecept (Application: Freie Universität Berlin und Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin for Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin).

“The result strengthens beacons of cutting-edge research along our Berlin science profile and allows us to develop two new beacon projects,” said Brain City Ambassador Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Günter M. Ziegler, Spokesperson of the Berlin University Alliance (BUA) and President of the FU Berlin. He also sees the result of the Excellence competition as an invitation to the joint universities FU Berlin, TU Berlin and HU Berlin with Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin to specify their joint strategic orientation further, as another five Berlin projects went away empty-handed: Four Clusters of excellence from the ongoing first funding phase Matters of Activity, UniSysCat – Unifying Systems in Catalysis, Temporal Communities and Science of Intelligence (SCIoI) as well as a new application: the project INTERACT: Inter-Organ Trajectories to Multimorbidity (Application: Freie Universität Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin for Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin).

Ziegler emphasised that the projects that were not approved also deserve the highest recognition: “They demonstrate impressively the diversity of Berlin as a research location.” Science Senator Dr. Ina Czyborra also emphasised Berlin’s importance as a central location for scientific innovation and cutting-edge research: “The funding of five Clusters of excellence shows: The capital stands for internationally visible excellent research.”

The competition for the second phase of the Excellence Strategy was demanding: 98 applications were received, 70 were selected for funding – the maximum number of projects. From 1 January 2026, these will receive a total of 539 million euros in funding per year for seven years. 75 per cent of the funding is provided by the Federal government and 25 per cent by the respective Federal states. The first funding phase of the Excellence Strategy started in 2018 – it expires at the end of 2025.

This year’s decision for the second funding phase has also secured funding for the Berlin University Alliance (BUA), a network of excellence to which the FU Berlin, TU Berlin and HU Berlin joined forces with Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin in 2018 to implement joint projects in the field of cutting-edge research. The formal requirement for further funding is that the consortium must have three Clusters of excellence. Each of the three participating universities must be involved in at least one cluster. The decision on applications in the Universities of excellence funding line will be made at the beginning of October 2026, with funding starting on 1 January 2027. (vdo)