The Excellence Strategy at the University of Würzburg
Our Clusters of Excellence
In the fiercely contested Excellence Competition, the University of Würzburg has been awarded two Clusters of Excellence in May 2025 — one in quantum physics and one in nucleic acid research. Although the University of Würzburg was unsuccessful in its bid for University of Excellence status in this round, these two Clusters of Excellence that it has secured demonstrate the high standard of academic excellence at JMU.
More about the Rudolf Virchow Centre and more about the Graduate School of Life Sciences (GSLS).
The Excellence Strategy is a federal and state government programme to promote scientific excellence and research cooperation between universities.
The programme comprises the two funding lines Clusters of Excellence and Universities of Excellence. JMU has been successful in all funding rounds since the start of the Excellence Competition.
JMU has acquired two Clusters of Excellence for the 2026–2032 funding period. The new research project NUCLEATE and the continuation of the Cluster of Excellence ctd.qmat were awarded funding, opening up the path to becoming a University of Excellence.
Although the University of Würzburg was unsuccessful in its bid for University of Excellence status this time, JMU sees its participation in the Excellence Competition as an important driving force behind the development of its university.
The Excellence Strategy is jointly implemented by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Council of Science and Humanities (WR).
DFG: Excellence Strategy of the Federal and State Governments
