Bridgette M.

Juarez

Germany

Germany is considered to be the ninth richest country in Europe. It has a Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) of 3.466 trillion US dollars in 2016.

For most of the 20th century, Germany had more Nobel Prizes in the sciences than any other
nation, and today the raw output of German scientific research consistently ranks among the world's best.

In 2004 science and policy-makers started to develop the idea for an Excellence Initiative. The
aims of the Initiative are to strengthen top-level research in Germany and to enhance its competitiveness
in the international domain. Thus a competition was launched to identify and reward outstanding projects
in three areas:

• Graduate Schools to promote young scientists and researchers

• Clusters of Excellence to promote top level research

• Institutional Strategies to develop project-based, top-level university research

The competition was organised by the DFG and the German Council of Science and Humanities.
The Federal and State Governments provided a total of 1.9 billion euros to fund the successful projects
until the end of 2017. Upon expiration, the initiative will now dole out €400 million a year to top-
performing universities until 2028. Another €100 million per year will be used to improve career
opportunities for young scientists.

The Excellence Initiative, launched in 2006, has produced hundreds of high-profile research
collaborations and graduate schools at dozens of universities throughout Germany, and added some
20,000 science jobs. The 11 most successful institutions — including universities in Munich, Berlin,
Göttingen, Aachen and Cologne — are now referred to as Germany’s elite universities.

Germany’s ruling political parties have agreed to add €5 billion (US$5.4 billion) more into science
from 2018 to 2028. The money will be used mostly for a decade-long extension to the Excellence Initiative.