LMU Munich University: Best in Germany, Aiming for World Elite
LMU Munich University, Main Building; Prof. Bernd Huber, Rector LMU Munich University
New York/Munich, October 13, 2006 - The Germany-wide Excellence Initiative for promoting top university research and education, named Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) Munich as the program´s biggest winner. The decision made clear that LMU Munich is the best university in Germany. The panel, composed of the German Research Foundation and the German Science Council, has decided that LMU Munich will receive funding for all three areas covered by the Initiative: one graduate school, three "excellence clusters" and general funding for the university´s "future concept".
"This is an enormous success for LMU Munich and the result of a lot of hard work - especially on the part of our many scientists and scholars," LMU Munich Rector Bernd Huber proclaimed. "With the Excellence Initiative funding we´re going to take our place among the world leaders. But today, it´s just time to celebrate," Huber added.
New programs with fresh funding
The most prestigious area of funding is aimed at general "future concepts for promoting top research". For its concept "Working Brains - Networking Minds - Living Knowledge", LMU Munich has been elevated to one of three universities that will form a vanguard of higher education in Germany. It plans to employ a more consistent and proactive recruitment strategy, an intensified investment concept, strategic evaluations to support the quality of university teaching and modern organization and management structures.
Three excellence clusters proposed by LMU Munich were accepted. The Munich Center for Integrated Protein Science will draw together various fields and several institutions to form a network for exploring the complex roles of proteins at the molecular level. The Munich Center for Advanced Photonics takes advantage of the huge advances in light source technology to enable whole new levels of interdisciplinary collaboration in the cutting-edge area of photonics. The Nanosystems Initiative Munich (NIM) will comprise experts from such diverse fields as biology, medicine and electrotechnology to develop new nanotechnologies and applications. All of these clusters will involve not only researchers from different disciplines but also from the Technische Universität Munich. The schools will also be collaborating with the Max Planck Institutes and many private-sector partners.
LMU Munich was chosen for the first area of funding with its Graduate School of Systematic Neurosciences (GSN). It will look at one of the most fundamental questions in science today: How does the brain function? Researchers from cellular and system-oriented neurosciences as well as neurophilosophers will form a unique network to explore fundamental issues in areas such as computational neurosciences, neurophysiology and neuropsychology. The GSN will initially take some 30 graduate-level students per year.
The Excellence Initiative was launched last June by Germany´s federal and state governments. The universities left in this narrowed field submitted their final proposals over the summer. Now that the panel has announced its decision, funding for these proposals will begin in the coming weeks.