The University of Freiburg: On the way to excellence in the future!

The University of Freiburg: On the way to excellence in the future!

The University of Freiburg is on the threshold of promising further development as a university of excellence. According to the University of Freiburg The excellence status is seen as a significant opportunity to consolidate the institution's leading international position in the field of research. Prof. Dr. Kerstin Krieglstein highlights the commitment of the university members, who contribute to strengthening the university through innovative ideas.

The goal is to achieve sustainable positive effects in various areas such as research, teaching, studies, administration and service. In order to be recognized as a university of excellence, clear criteria such as the long-term viability of the overall strategy and the effectiveness of the university management must be met.

Progress in the Excellence Strategy

As part of the Excellence Strategy, two cluster initiatives at the University of Freiburg have made significant progress, such as: University of Freiburg reports. These initiatives, “Constitution as Practice in Times of Transformation” (ConTrans) and “Future Forests – Adapting Complex Social-ecological Forest Systems to Global Change”, were invited to submit full proposals by August 22, 2024. The announcement is made by the German Research Foundation and the Science Council.

Both initiatives have the potential to significantly increase the social relevance of research at the university. ConTrans focuses on the role of constitutions as a network of social practices and strives to establish international constitutional research. Participants include several faculties, including the Faculty of Philology and Law. Future Forests, on the other hand, deals with the analysis of forests as social-ecological systems and aims to develop concepts for more adaptable forests, with the support of the faculties of biology and environment and natural resources.

More detailed insights into the excellence strategy

The Excellence Strategy serves to strengthen Germany as a science location in international competition, an initiative that was decided by the federal and state governments in 2016. It follows the Excellence Initiative, which supported research-intensive universities from 2007 to 2017. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research highlights the importance of this strategy, which consists of two funding lines: Clusters of Excellence and Universities of Excellence. Clusters of Excellence promote internationally competitive research fields and offer outstanding scientists the opportunity to work together.

In May 2025, a decision was made to support 70 clusters of excellence from 2026, with annual funding of 539 million euros. The existing support is ensured by careful selection process management by the DFG and the Science Council, which evaluates the scientific quality of the applications.

Overall, the University of Freiburg shows great potential for movement through its desired development and the active contribution to the excellence strategy, which benefits both the institution and the entire science location of Freiburg.