Interdisciplinary work group "Excellence Initiative" of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science, project "Rejected Clusters"

Winners and losers of the first and second round of Germany's Excellence Initiative are identified; both rounds were accompanied by a broad debate on aims, procedures and evaluation criteria of "excellence": were innovation and "excellence" really decisive, or was it the reputation of those filing the proposal? Did only big universities have real chances of success? Is the big share of management tasks justified? Are the criteria of the competition also suitable for social sciences and humanities? Accordingly, research foundations and the Länder initiated compensatory programs, where some of the "losers" of the Excellence Initiative can be found. The aim of the project is to look at these compensatory programs and to answer the question as to how scientific actors deal with the non-funding of particular cluster proposals. This will be done by guided interviews with speakers of clusters receiving compensatory funding, and with coordinators of such programs.