25.06.2025 Together on the Path to Excellence
Justus Liebig University Giessen and Marburg University are jointly applying for the title of “University of Excellence.”
The two most traditional universities in Hesse are jointly entering the competition for the wanted title of “University of Excellence”: Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU) and Marburg University (UMR) have submitted a letter of intent for a joint application in the second funding line of the Excellence Strategy. Following the great success of the two universities, which acquired a total of four clusters of excellence in May, the next step in the nationwide top-level research competition is now imminent. The joint application is based on many years of fruitful cooperation in the Research Campus Central Hessen (FCMH), operated by the universities together with the Technical University of Central Hessen (THM).
“After our outstanding performance in the first funding round, it is the right decision to pool our expertise and position ourselves jointly,” emphasizes Prof. Dr. Katharina Lorenz, President of Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU). “We can look back on a long shared history, which has been characterized by a spirit of partnership, particularly in recent decades.”
"The great success of our clusters of excellence is impressive proof of the competitiveness of cutting-edge research in Marburg and Giessen, which is based on a long-standing partnership and the strategic orientation of our universities as dynamic centers of science with international appeal. With our joint application for the title of University of Excellence, we are taking this common ground to the next level," emphasizes Prof. Dr. Thomas Nauss, President of Marburg University.
The conditions for a joint application in the Excellence Universities funding line are more than fulfilled by JLU and UMR with the four clusters: The joint application as a consortium of two or three universities in the Excellence Strategy requires the funding of at least three clusters of excellence at these universities. Each of the universities participating in the consortium must have at least one cluster of excellence.
The four clusters of excellence in Giessen and Marburg, which focus on future-oriented topics such as heart and lung diseases, the adaptability of the human brain, battery research, and combating climate change with the help of microbiology, demonstrate that cooperation and exchange are alive and well in Central Hesse. The Marburg cluster of excellence M4C – Microbes for Climate involves the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg and bioinformatics in Giessen, while researchers from Giessen, Marburg, and Darmstadt are working together in the TAM – The Adaptive Mind cluster.
The CPI – Cardio-Pulmonary Institute is a joint institution of JLU, Goethe University Frankfurt, and the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim. And in Germany's only cross-state cluster of excellence, JLU researchers are working with their partners at KIT – Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the University of Ulm on the energy storage of the future.