Kiel University continues on its path of development following its application for University of Excellence status
Key initiatives from “Connecting Horizons” to be pursued further
Kiel University (CAU) has not been awarded University of Excellence status. “Of course, we would have hoped for a different outcome,” says Vice-President Prof. Dr Eckhard Quandt. “But from the outset, we also saw the application as an opportunity to drive forward our strategic development as a university. Much of what has emerged or been set in motion during this process remains valid and significant for the CAU.”
Vice-President Prof. Dr Catherine Cleophas thanks the researchers, academic and administrative staff, students and the numerous partners who contributed to the application. “The application brought together many people from different areas of the university and beyond. The Senate and the Executive Board, together with the academic and administrative staff, jointly supported this process. In the process, new ideas and collaborations emerged, whilst trust, contacts and a better understanding of one another also grew.”
“For researchers at the early and mid-stages of their careers, the Excellence Competition has created new opportunities to play an active role in shaping the development of the CAU,” says Prof. Dr Jan Steinkühler, holder of the Chair of Bio-inspired Computation and involved in the on-site assessment by the expert commission. “In the process, many new connections have been forged across disciplines and research areas. This dynamic creates new opportunities for collaborative research.”
“The Excellence Competition has shown just how much potential lies within the CAU and how important it is for students to help shape the development of a university,” says Lea-Marie Lopau, a member of the Executive Board of the General Students’ Committee and also involved in the on-site assessment. “We hope that the valuable impetus from the Excellence Competition application will be taken forward, particularly for a study programme that adopts an interdisciplinary approach, communicates knowledge to society and is jointly developed by teaching staff and students.”
Tackling global challenges from the Baltic Sea region
With its vision for the future, “Connecting Horizons. From the Baltic Perspective to Global Impact”, the CAU has made its location in the Baltic Sea region the starting point for its institutional strategy. For the university, the region is more than just a geographical reference point: ecological, technological, societal and geopolitical changes become visible here as if under a magnifying glass. Many of these challenges transcend national and disciplinary boundaries and can only be tackled through the interplay of diverse academic and societal perspectives. The CAU therefore regards the Baltic Sea region as a shared space for research and cooperation.
Accordingly, the ‘Baltic Perspective’ combines research, study and teaching, knowledge transfer and talent development with a common goal: to address challenges of regional significance through inter- and transdisciplinary approaches and, in so doing, to gain insights and develop solutions that are relevant and effective even beyond the Baltic Sea region. To this end, the CAU has developed five interconnected strategic objectives and corresponding measures.
“The Baltic Sea region offers us outstanding opportunities to bring together complementary academic expertise as well as diverse cultural and societal perspectives,” says Quandt. “In doing so, we can build on long-standing partnerships and new connections within the region. We intend to develop these relationships strategically in order to tackle pressing research questions together and launch new research networks.”
One example of the measures that will continue to contribute to this objective is the Baltic DenkRaum. This internationally and interdisciplinarily oriented research incubator brings together researchers from different disciplines and at various career stages, as well as international partners, for one semester at a time to work on selected topics. The aim is for this to give rise to new research approaches and collaborations that may, in the long term, lead to joint research projects and consortia.
Reconfiguring research strengths
Strengthening the links between disciplines and research areas is another key focus of “Connecting Horizons”. At the intersections of its four established research priorities, the CAU has identified six so-called “Emerging Fields” with particular potential for interdisciplinary research: evolutionary biology, medical technology, coastal sensor technology, energy transition research, agricultural sensor technology, and peace and security. These research fields address scientifically dynamic topics of high societal relevance, which require the pooling of expertise from several key research areas. Consequently, the focus is increasingly shifting not only to established research strengths but also to the connections between them.
“In the Baltic Sea region in particular, it is clear how closely agriculture, water quality and biodiversity are interlinked,” says Prof. Dr Sandra Spielvogel, Professor of Soil Science and scientific director of the first Baltic DenkRaum project. “The application process has encouraged us to bring together expertise in the emerging field of agricultural sensor technology across disciplinary and national boundaries. In this way, solutions can be developed collaboratively in the Baltic Sea region that also provide insights for comparable challenges in other regions of the world.”
“As part of the application, we looked very closely at where our particular strengths lie, where new scientific potential is emerging, and how we can combine these,” says Cleophas. “It is crucial for us to translate our scientific strength into impact – in research and teaching, but also in our engagement with society, politics and industry. As a state university, we see this as a particular responsibility.”
Scientific strength as the basis for institutional development
The current application builds on a development that the CAU has been consistently pursuing for around 20 years. The cross-faculty pooling of scientific strengths gave rise to the four Priority Research Areas that today form the backbone of the university’s research profile.
This process of profile development has given rise to the success story of the Clusters of Excellence in the fields of inflammatory medicine and archaeology. In 2025, both Cluster teams succeeded in securing national funding for the fourth time with their research. In parallel, the CAU has continued to develop its institutional structures, including in the areas of internationalisation, knowledge transfer and digitalisation. “Connecting Horizons” sets out how this strategic approach can be consistently pursued to provide a strategic direction for the CAU’s future development.
The Excellence Commission’s decision marks the end of the CAU’s current application as a University of Excellence, but not the end of the strategic development within which it is embedded.
The CAU’s President-elect, Prof. Dr Michal Kucera, who will take up his post on 1 November 2026, also wishes to build on this development: “With two Clusters of Excellence, the CAU remains a successful research university in the Excellence Competition. The CAU has a clear and internationally visible academic profile and has established a dense network of partnerships. The Baltic Sea region in particular offers great potential for further developing strategic exchange between universities and research institutes and for jointly tackling global challenges. Many new, outstanding ideas, connections and perspectives have emerged as part of the Excellence Application. They form a strong starting point for the university’s further development.”
Weitere Informationen:
https://www.uni-kiel.de/en/details/news/174-exzellenzverkuendung
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