Four research clusters at Universität Hamburg will be moving on to the next round in the national funding competition known as the “Exzellenzstrategie des Bundes und der Länder.” Today (29 October 2017) the German Research Foundation (DFG) requested full applications from Climate, Climatic Change, and Society; Advanced Imaging of Matter; Quantum Universe; and Understanding Written Artefacts. This means that the four research clusters have made the final round of this important competition.
Four cluster initiatives at Universität Hamburg have been selected for the final. Credit: UHH/Denstorf
Prof. Dr. Dieter Lenzen, the University’s president, stated: “We closely followed today’s announcement, together and in great anticipation. We are delighted that four of the five research cluster projects that we submitted have reached the final round! This means that we have cleared a major hurdle in the first funding line of the Excellence Strategy. Now a phase of hard work awaits us and particularly our researchers, but it is one we are happy to shoulder. And then we will have to patiently wait for the results.”
The researchers have until February 2018 to complete and submit their applications to the DFG.
Next steps in the Excellence Competition
A committee of experts comprising primarily international researchers with the DFG chose the cluster applications for the next round. The clusters to receive funding as of 1 January 2019 will be announced in September 2018.
In the past Excellence Initiative, the DFG – funded two clusters of excellence at Universität Hamburg: Integrated Climate System Analysis and Prediction (CliSAP) and the Hamburg Center for Ultrafast Imaging (CUI), the latter of which is dedicated to the observation of atoms in real time. “Advanced Imaging of Matter” has been developed out of CUI. The spokespersons Prof. Dr. Henry Chapman (Universität Hambur, DESY), Prof. Dr. Klaus Sengstock and Prof. Dr. Horst Weller (both Universität Hamburg) are very happy that the new initiative has been requested to hand in full applications: “We are facing a very intensive working phase, now, where we have to join all forces to refine our concept into a scientifically highly sophisticated full application.“
Additional information:
Press Release Universität Hamburg