1. Graduate Schools to promote young scientists at the doctoral level.
2. Clusters of Excellence to promote top-level research projects (without disciplinary focus).
3. Institutional strategies – so-called Zukunftskonzepte – to enhance both research and education of a selected number of universities (nine at the moment) in order to shape their profile and in doing so, transform them into internationally recognized “beacons of science”.

Due to its overall goal of restructuring the German university landscape and enhancing competitiveness of the whole system, the “Initiative for Excellence” is bringing a new impetus among German funding policies known so far.
The German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft/DFG) was commissioned to implement the programme. In order to analyze the process of acceptance, the effects of grants, and outcomes of the “Initiative for Excellence” throughout the funding period and beyond, the DFG asked the iFQ to develop and implement a sound-based monitoring-system that allows the estimation of both intended and unintended effects of the programme.