TU Dresden is represented with a total of six full proposals in the final round of the Excellence Strategy of the Federal and State governments. Four of them are under the sole responsibility of TUD, one is a joint project with the University of Würzburg and one with RWTH Aachen University – making TUD one of the strongest universities nationwide in this part of the competition.

“For us at TUD, defending the six full proposals for Clusters of Excellence was both a testament to our university’s research strength and required a great deal of effort from everyone involved in the EXC teams, as well as members of Directorate Research and the University Executive Board. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all involved for their outstanding commitment. Once again, we have shown that we are the collaborative university,” says TUD Rector Prof. Ursula Staudinger, who, together with the Cluster speakers and the Saxon State Minister for Science, Sebastian Gemkow, attended each appointment and defended the full proposals.

“We were able to highlight our unique strengths in broad cooperation between disciplines and collaboration in the DRESDEN-concept research alliance, as well as in the area of innovation, and make a strong impression,” continued the Rector. With this proof of the excellent research capabilities at TUD, the decision of the DFG and the WR is now being awaited with confidence and anticipation.

The funding recipients will be announced on May 22, 2025. The funding period will begin in 2026.

New proposals from TU Dresden:

BiC: Behaviour in Context: Brain and Machine Computations of Behaviour in Complex and Uncertain Environments (Calculations of behavior by brain and machine in complex and precarious environments)

• Speaker of the Cluster: Prof. Stefan Kiebel

The human brain controls behaviour in complex situations reliably and highly efficiently. Despite years of research, AI systems just can’t keep up in terms of efficiency. The BiC Cluster of Excellence wants to investigate whether recently discovered brain mechanisms represent key principles and can be transferred to machine learning and to the development of therapies.

CARE: Climate-Neutral and Resource-Efficient Construction     (Climate-neutral and resource-efficient construction; TU Dresden together with RWTH Aachen)

• Speaker of the Cluster: Prof. Victor Mechtcherine and Prof. Martin Claßen (RWTH Aachen)

Conventional concrete and cement make up 80 percent of building materials and are responsible for more than 8 percent of global CO2 emissions during production. The CARE Cluster of Excellence at TU Dresden and RWTH Aachen University aims to use climate-friendly building materials, new construction principles, manufacturing technologies and circular economy tools to show ways towards sustainable construction.

REC2: Responsible Electronics in the Climate-Change Era (Responsible electronics in the age of climate change)

• Speaker of the Cluster: Prof. Yana Vaynzof

Electronics bring many benefits to our lives, but at a cost of enormous resource and energy consumption and generation of e-waste. The REC² cluster is creating the scientific basis for the electronics of the future: new material platforms, device concepts and integrated systems with which responsible electronics can be realized in an ecologically, economically and societally sustainable way.

Renewal proposals from TU Dresden:

CeTI: Centre for Tactile Internet with Human-in-the-Loop (Centre for Tactile Internet with Human-in-the-Loop)

• Speaker: Prof. Frank H. P. Fitzek

CeTI advances efficient collaboration between humans and machines. One of its applications is the co-working of humans and machines with mutual learning and across distances without programming knowledge. This requires the development of innovative technologies for real-time communication as well as robust models of the human body and its ability to react.

ctd.qmat: Complexity , and dynamism in Quantum Matter; (TU Dresden along with the Julius-Maximilians-Universität of Würzburg)

• Speaker: Prof. Matthias Vojta and Prof. Ralph Claessen (Julius-Maximilians-Universität of Würzburg – JMU)

ctd.qmat develops new quantum materials with customized functionalities that form the indispensable basis for technological progress. The Cluster, which is supported by TUD and the University of Würzburg, combines physics, chemistry and materials science and links two of the world’s leading research locations for condensed matter. It bridges the gap between theoretical and experimental fundamental research with a strong focus on application.

PoL: Physics of Life. The Dynamic Organization of Living Matter (The Physics of Life. The dynamic organization of living matter)

• Speaker: Prof. Otger Campàs

Understanding life is one of the greatest and most complex challenges in science. The Cluster seeks to get to the bottom of the fundamental questions in cell and developmental biology and initiate a paradigm shift: We need physics to fully understand biological processes.