The Excellence Strategy is an important agreement between the federal and state governments that aims to sustainably promote top-level research and strengthen the international competitiveness of German universities – and thus Germany as a business location. It is the successor to the Excellence Initiative. The decision on the funding of the Clusters of Excellence will be made in May 2025; the actual funding of the selected projects will then start on January 1, 2026 for a period of seven years.

The preparation of the Hessian excellence applications has benefited greatly from the funding provided by the state of Hesse. Members of the CCS are involved in three applications: TAM, RAI and CoM2Life. TAM and RAI in particular, whose applications LOEWE-WhiteBox has also worked on, would be a great perspective for the topics of the CCS. We are keeping our fingers crossed!