Exzellenzclusterentscheidung 2025

Subtitels English: 

Dear members and affiliates of the University of Stuttgart,

Last Thursday, the German Research Foundation and the German Science and Humanities Council announced their decision to fund Clusters of Excellence in the coming years. Many of you have likely been following this in the media.

I would like to provide a brief report on this and present the results relevant to the University of Stuttgart.

First of all, I am delighted that we have once again been successful with our Cluster of Excellence IntCDC in the field of the transformation of architecture and construction. This means that the federal and state governments will fund this cluster with the two participating institutions, the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and Bauhaus Earth, for a further seven years.

Congratulations to the participating researchers and their teams. Thank you to everyone who has worked tirelessly, both center stage and behind the scenes, to make our cluster proposals a success.

My special thanks also go to all those whose proposals were unfortunately not successful in this round. With their diverse, interdisciplinary work on simulation technologies, bionic intelligence in neuroscience and molecular quantum systems, they contribute significantly to the further development of our university and its unique research profile. All the proposals we submitted demonstrate the strength and potential of our university. I look forward to continuing our work together.

However, it is also clear that we had hoped for an even better outcome for our university, especially regarding the three cluster proposals that will not receive funding.

The Excellence Strategy is a very challenging competition based on a scientific evaluation by international experts. We can be proud that four of our proposals made it to the final round, and we will now take the time to carefully evaluate the results.

With one funded Cluster of Excellence, we as the University of Stuttgart are now not eligible to apply for the next funding line “Universities of Excellence”, for which we have been preparing intensively in recent months. The goals and strategies we have developed within this framework remain valid and important nonetheless. They provide a solid foundation for the strategic development of our university’s profile, which we will continue to build upon.

We will continue to use the resources mobilized for the Excellence Competition to further advance the University of Stuttgart.

Let us continue to strengthen and expand the unique research and innovation ecosystem we have here in Stuttgart.  With partners from university and non-university research institutions, established companies, strong SMEs and innovative start-ups.

Much remains to be done in research, teaching and transfer in order to jointly develop solutions for the major challenges of our time and a sustainable and forward-looking society, And I look forward to continuing on this path together with all of you.