Elite universities

Six universities won elite status in October in the second round of Germany’s “excellence initiative,” a five-year, $1.9 billion ($2.7 billion) attempt to raise some universities to top levels of international competitiveness (see Physics Today, January 2007, page 28 ). Bringing the total to nine, the big winners this round are RWTH Aachen University, the Free University of Berlin, and the universities of Freiburg, Göttingen, Heidelberg, and Konstanz.

Also through the excellence initiative, 20 new clusters of excellence—research teams that are intended to build up specific areas of study—and 21 new graduate schools were each awarded roughly €6.5 million and €1 million a year, respectively. Universities with at least one of each of these awards were eligible to compete for elite status—and an additional €12.5 million or so a year—with the winners chosen for their long-term strategies. Aachen’s strategy, for example, included expanding its natural sciences base to equal its engineering strength and formalizing closer ties with the Jülich Research Center (academic home of new physics Nobel laureate Peter Grünberg; see page 12 of this issue).

The main benefit of the excellence initiative, says Ulrich Schollwöck, head of Aachen’s physics department, “is that after decades of politically ordained pseudo-equality, it is now accepted to speak and act openly on the obvious truth that quality [in universities] comes in a wide range.” That, he adds, is more important than the initiative’s infusion of funding.