Excellence Strategy

18 December 2025|Excellence Strategy

Digital Tools to Improve Maternal Health in Ethiopia

Photo: CC0

In Ethiopia, an estimated 400 out of every 100,000 women die during pregnancy, childbirth, or in the puerperium. Thus, maternal mortality is more than 150 times higher than in Germany. A knowledge exchange project at the University of Hamburg now aims to provide information on health, hygiene, and...

17 November 2025|Excellence Strategy

The German Physical Society Honors University of Hamburg Physicist

Photo: MPSD

The German Physical Society has awarded Prof. Dr. Andrea Cavalleri the Stern-Gerlach Medal for outstanding work in experimental physics. Cavalleri is the leading researcher in the Cluster of Excellence CUI: Advanced Images of Matter at the University of Hamburg.

10 November 2025|Excellence Strategy

“Belém is a signal.”

Photo: Rafa Neddermeyer/Cop30

In the Cluster of Excellence Climate, Climatic Change, and Society (CLICCS), Brazilian-born sociology professor Eduardo Gonçalves Gresse is researching how international climate conferences work. He is taking part as an observer in this year’s UN Climate Change Conference in his native country, and...

6 November 2025|Excellence Strategy

Ultrafast meets ultrashort: CUI team receives prestigious ERC Synergy Grant

Photo: Private

A research team in the Cluster of Excellence CUI: Advanced Imaging of Matter at the University of Hamburg and DESY has been awarded the prestigious Synergy Grant from the European Research Council. It will receive €14 million to combine atomic-scale imaging with attosecond science, the most advanced...

21 October 2025|Excellence Strategy

The Sky in All Its Colors

Photo: ESO/B. Tafreshi

A few days ago, the European Southern Observatory launched operation of a new type of instrument, the 4-meter Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope (4MOST), which will carry out unique sky surveys over the next five years. The University of Hamburg is involved in this milestone of the international...

7 October 2025|Excellence Strategy

X-Ray Insight into Ancient Letters

Group photo with the ENCI team in the Anatolian Civilizations Museum in Ankara

Photo: Charles Steitler

The cuneiform tablets of Mesopotamia are considered the world’s oldest written artifacts. Many of them are hidden in clay envelopes, their contents still a mystery. The world’s first mobile CT scanner for cultural goods is now enabling the Cluster of Excellence Understanding Written Artefacts (UWA)...

2 October 2025|Excellence Strategy

Thoughts on the “Marvelous Magnifying Glass”

A high-resolution electron microscope reveals the distribution of elements in a nanoparticle

Photo: UHH/Kornowski

With its 5 electron microscopes, the University of Hamburg is a major location for these large pieces of equipment. The chemist Dr. Charlotte Ruhmlieb explains how to make them as useful to as many researchers as possible and why research today is inconceivable without these microscopes.

6 August 2025|Excellence Strategy

Timing for Parenthood, the Great Unknown

Photo: University of Hamburg / Dingler

At what point do couples decide to have children? How is this decided? And how does this impact society? Economist Dr. Christian Zimpelmann wants to investigate these questions using panel surveys and qualitative interviews. The project is supported by the University of Excellence Hamburg’s Ideas...

25 July 2025|Excellence Strategy

New ExStra funding: Innovative rooms for innovative teaching

Illustration of the University of Hamburg Main Building

Photo: University of Hamburg / Vogiatzis

The first projects funded by the Fund for Innovative Teaching (FIL) have been announced. The motto of the call for proposals was “Innovative spaces for innovative teaching.” Project funding in the amount of €190,000 comes from the Excellence Strategy of the Federal and State Governments.

15 July 2025|Excellence Strategy

Holy Warriors, Monasteries, and Demons

Photo: Private

How do video games and TV series portray the Christian religion? Three students at the University of Hamburg are researching exactly that, and traveling to the world’s leading computer game trade fair in Cologne to investigate. This is one of 9 student research groups funding by Universität...

30 June 2025|Excellence Strategy

Former Command Post Becomes Public Garden

Photo: CC0

The conversion of the former command post and bunker on Heiligengeistfeld has created a sensation. The New York Times, for instance, named Hamburg one of 52 places to go in 2025 when the green bunker kicked off. University of Hamburg students are now creating visitor information videos. Historian...

19 June 2025|Excellence Strategy

Excellence Website Redesign

Photo: University of Hamburg / Vogiatzis

In preparation for the University of Excellence evaluation by the German Council of Science and Humanities, our University’s excellence website had a makeover. Its modern look and feel accentuates the presentation of University achievements within the Excellence Strategy and its future goals.

23 May 2025|Excellence Strategy

“Top-Level Research Has a Home, and It’s Called Hamburg”

Photos from the cluster announcement in the University of Hamburg Audimax

Photo: University of Hamburg / Höhne

On 22 May 2025, the German Research Foundation (DFG) endorsed the tremendous work carried out in the University of Hamburg’s clusters of excellence, announcing that all four projects would continue to receive funding during the next funding period. The research alliances cover a range of topics...

22 May 2025|Excellence Strategy

“A Great Success: The University of Hamburg Awarded 4 Clusters of Excellence”

Man sieht das Hauptgebäude der Uni Hamburg.

Photo: UHH/Denstorf

The University of Hamburg was extremely successful in the framework of the Excellence Strategy, securing funding for the 4 existing clusters of excellence in the next funding round from January 2026. The University has thus consolidated its top position among the leading group of German research...

3 April 2025|Excellence Strategy

Excellence Strategy “A Wonderful Opportunity to Advance Our University”

Information event about the Excellence Strategy

Photo: University of Hamburg / Esfandiari

Within the ongoing competition for clusters of excellence and the 2025 excellence evaluations, members of the Executive University Board have apprised all those studying, teaching, researching, and working at the University of current excellence strategy activities.

11 March 2025|Excellence Strategy

On-site and live-streamed event: On 1 April, find out all you need to know about the Excellence Strategy

Photo of University of Hamburg Main Building

Photo: Frank von Wieding

“Into the Future with Excellence” is the title of the event to which all University members are invited. On Wednesday, 1 April 2025, participants can expect information and an exchange about the University of Excellence’s successes to date and current plans. The event will also be live streamed.

31 January 2025|Excellence Strategy

Stories from the jet age: how flying has changed the world

travelers check in at a new reception area at the Frankfurt Airport in 1974.

Photo: Fraport archive

One rejects flying while the other takes a private jet from Hamburg to Sylt. Lauren Stokes, professor of German history at Northwestern University in the United States, explores the economic, social, and political dimensions of flying. The advanced fellow is currently living and researching at...

30 January 2025|Excellence Strategy

The Beginning of the Universe and the Einstein Telescope

Graphic shows construction of research site.

Photo: MPI for Gravitational Physics

Together with cooperation partners, researchers in the University of Hamburg Cluster of Excellence Quantum Universe are developing and testing components of the future Einstein Telescope. The large research system is a third-generation gravitational wave detector and is set to be built in Europe in...

13 January 2025|Excellence Strategy

Mysterious Damage: Valuable Manuscripts from Tunisia Analysed in Hamburg

Photo: CSMC

Numerous artefacts from one of the world’s most important collections of Islamic manuscripts are affected by an unusual form of degradation. In late 2024, a delegation from Tunisia brought 15 objects to Hamburg and analysed them together with the experts of the Artefact Lab at the Centre for the...

7 January 2025|Excellence Strategy

University of Hamburg Early Career Researchers Win International Competition

Photo: private

A team of doctoral researchers and postdocs in the Department of Physics at the University of Hamburg have won the Airbus-BMW Group Quantum Computing Challenge in one of 5 categories. The international competition is organized by Airbus, BMW, and Amazon in cooperation with the digital magazine The...