The University of Stuttgart faces up to the competition on sustainably strengthening cutting edge research in Germany and has submitted five draft proposals for excellence clusters for the excellence strategy determined by the Federal Government and the Federal States in June 2016. The topics reflect the profile of the University of Stuttgart in core areas in which the University is already able to document its research strengths through excellent preliminary work. This includes in particular the excellence cluster Simulation Technology (SimTech) and the Graduate School for Advanced Manufacturing Engineering, but also numerous DFG special research fields and Graduate College as well as other research associations.
In this way the excellence cluster SimTech, already funded since the excellence initiative 2007, would like to develop further in the direction of data-integrated simulation sciences. Building on two successful special research fields in the environment of architecture and civil engineering, an interdisciplinary team applied for a new cluster in the field of computer-based planning and building. The significance of digitalisation in production technology is the focus of a cluster application on software-driven production methods. Together with the University of Ulm and the Max-Planck-Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart scientists are applying for a cluster in the field of quantum sciences. Finally Stuttgart humanists, linguists and social scientists in an association with the University of Tübingen are applying for excellence funding to research processes of understanding.
The “Excellence Strategy“ comprises a funding program, endowed in 2017 with 80 million Euros as well as from 2018 with a total of 533 million Euros annually. The German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Science Council are conducting the science-driven evaluation and selection procedure. For which proposals the universities will be allowed to make a full application will be decided on 27th September 2017. A final approval for the clusters will be decided on in September 2018.