Ruhr Region Secures Three Clusters of Excellence in Tough Competition
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Funding has been granted to the three Clusters of Excellence “RESOLV” in the field of solvation science, “CASA” for cybersecurity, and “Color Meets Flavor” in particle physics. The Cluster of Excellence “RESOLV – Ruhr Explores Solvation” was able to secure its third funding phase; Ruhr University Bochum and TU Dortmund University are applicant institutions, scientists from the University of Duisburg-Essen are contributing. “CASA” has chosen the new theme “Securing the Digital Society” for its second funding phase; the cluster is hosted by Ruhr University Bochum, scientists from the University of Duisburg-Essen are involved. The new application “Color Meets Flavor” has been filed jointly by TU Dortmund University, the University of Bonn, the University of Siegen und Forschungszentrum Jülich. Starting in January 2026, the three clusters will receive several million euros in funding annually for seven years. The cluster “REASONS” from the University of Duisburg-Essen on sustainable river management had also been invited to submit a full proposal in the highly competitive preliminary round encompassing 140 new initiatives, but has not been approved in the final round.
University Alliance Ruhr Continues Successful Partnership
“We congratulate the researchers from the three Clusters of Excellence on their hard-earned success. That even scientifically outstanding proposals have been declined shows how extremely contested funding for top-level research has become,” say the rectors of the University Alliance Ruhr Professor Barbara Albert (University of Duisburg-Essen), Professor Manfred Bayer (TU Dortmund University), and Professor Martin Paul (Ruhr University Bochum). “Although it is regrettable that the three UA Ruhr universities could not jointly qualify for the next round of the Excellence Strategy, we will continue to work together. We have already compiled numerous ideas for how we can work more closely together, and we will definitely pursue these ideas. The funding of the approved clusters and continued financing of the Research Alliance Ruhr by the State of NRW will provide a very solid foundation for this.” In the next step, the members of the University Alliance Ruhr will jointly determine if and how they could proceed in the Excellence Strategy.
One example for the structurally innovative partnership strengthening top-level research in the University Alliance Ruhr is the Research Alliance Ruhr with its four shared research centers and its college. After three years of initial funding from the State of NRW amounting to 75 million euros, funding of 48 million euros per year has been allocated in the state budget since 2024. Up to 50 professorships will be established at the inter-university institutions.
About the Excellence Strategy
Starting in 2026, the federal and state governments will fund 70 Clusters of Excellence, 13 more than before. 98 research projects entered the final phase of the highly competitive process, among them 57 existing Clusters of Excellence and 41 new proposals. Those universities that have received a sufficient number of Clusters of Excellence will be able to apply for funding in autumn as a “University of Excellence” or a “Consortium of Excellence”.
The Cluster of Excellence RESOLV has put a focus on the solvent and established a new research discipline in chemistry. The consortium, which is based at Ruhr University Bochum and TU Dortmund University, will enter its third funding period in 2026. The Bochum-Dortmund team is going to continue its successful interdisciplinary collaboration with researchers from the University of Duisburg-Essen and the three Max Planck Institutes for Coal Research, Chemical Energy Conversion, and Sustainable Materials. While biological and chemical reactions typically take place in a solvent, solvents have traditionally been considered a mere bystander in the process. The RESOLV team has shown that the role of the solvent has been underestimated, as it actively takes part in chemical reactions. The upcoming funding period is intended to gain an even better understanding and ability to regulate solvent-controlled processes.
“We want to tackle new research challenges: With ‘quantum solvation’, we intend to focus, both experimentally and theoretically, on quantum effects in reactions including solvent processes. This would constitute a milestone in chemical research,” says Professor Martina Havenith, RESOLV spokesperson. Co-spokespersons of the consortium are Professor Gabriele Sadowski from TU Dortmund University and Professor Viktoria Däschlein-Gessner from Ruhr University Bochum.
The Cluster of Excellence “CASA – Securing the Digital Society” will significantly strengthen the resilience of the digital society by developing next generation security solutions that holistically protect large-scale (socio-)technical systems. Cyberattacks now increasingly target not just individuals and companies, but also hospitals, government services, higher education institutions, and critical infrastructure. Attacks are increasingly being carried out by state attackers pursuing geopolitical interests. The emergence of disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and blockchain is creating numerous new opportunities, while also increasing the associated risks in the digital space.
“To address real threats in the digital space and beyond, CASA will deliver innovative solutions from cybersecurity research. In doing so, we aim to make a highly relevant contribution to protecting our society," says spokesperson Professor Eike Kiltz, who manages CASA together with the Hub Coordinators Professor Ghassan Karame, Professor Christof Paar and Professor Angela Sasse. Since 2019, CASA is hosted at Ruhr University Bochum; researchers from the University of Duisburg-Essen are also involved. The second funding phase of CASA starts in 2026.
In the new Cluster of Excellence “Color meets Flavor” researchers from TU Dortmund University, the University of Bonn, the University of Siegen, and Forschungszentrum Jülich will jointly search for new phenomena in the interaction of fundamental particles. The existence of dark matter and the asymmetry between matter and antimatter in the universe indicate that our understanding of nature is still incomplete. Even though almost all measurements in particle physics can already be accurately described by the Standard Model of Particle Physics, deciphering the structure of matter at the subatomic level remains one of the most pressing questions in fundamental physics research.
“Some of the most interesting measurements in recent years concern the interplay between strong and weak interactions, which we metaphorically call 'color' and 'flavor'. We want to shed more light on this interplay over the next seven years by working closely together in theoretical research and experiments,” says Prof. Johannes Albrecht, local spokesperson for the cluster at TU Dortmund University. The focus is on the physics of quarks and the question of how these fundamental building blocks of matter form complex bonding states. In addition, the properties of the Higgs boson will be explored and the search for the axion will be continued. The experimental range extends from experiments at lower energies at the ELSA particle accelerator in Bonn to experiments at the highest energies at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva.
Prof. Nele McElvany from the Center for Research on Education and School Development (IFS) at TU Dortmund University will lead a school study for the newly funded Cluster of Excellence “Center for Chiral Electronics” at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Regensburg: A large-scale intervention study is to be carried out over several years to find out how best to attract pupils to the natural sciences and, more specifically, the subject of physics.
Further information on the participation
Prof. Anna Isaeva from the Department of Physics at TU Dortmund University and the Research Center Future Energy Materials and Systems at the University Alliance Ruhr will continue her long-term research collaboration with the Cluster of Excellence “ctd.qmat” (Complexity, Topology and Dynamics in Quantum Matter). The cluster is based at TUD Dresden University of Technology and Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg and develops novel quantum materials with customized functionalities that form the indispensable basis for technological progress. Professor Isaeva’s group designs and grows tailored bulk topological matter, in particular, magnetic topological insulators. Anna Isaeva has been involved in ctd.qmat since the cluster was first funded in 2019 and remains an external member since leaving Dresden in 2021.