On 22 April 2016 the Federal Government and the Heads of Government of the Länder (States) announced an agreement to the Excellence Initiative in a press conference in the Federal Press Conference. The funding period for all graduate schools of Excellence Initiative is planned to be extended by 24 months, to October 2019.

Further information about the press conference is available at: https://www.bmbf.de/de/neues-exzellenzprogramm-staerkt-universitaere-spitzenforschung-2724.html abrufbar (in German).

For the official press release, plese see: http://www.gwk-bonn.de/fileadmin/Pressemitteilungen/pm2016-04.pdf (in German).

As part of the media coverage of the federal-state agreement to the Excellence Initiative BGHS Executive Manager Dr. Sabine Schäfer was invited to a radio interview and a discussion on Deutschlandfunk (DLF), a German public broadcasting radio, with Kate Maleike (editor DLF) and Eva Quante-Brandt (Senator for Science and Research, State of Bremen). Please find link to the DLF-website and a podcast of the programme and the discussion attached:

Website DLF Campus & Karriere, (22 April 2016):

http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/forschungsfoerderung-wie-die-exzellenzinitiative.680.de.html

Podcast (Discussion with Dr. Sabine Schäfer from 0:24:30 min.):

http://ondemand-mp3.dradio.de/file/dradio/2016/04/23/dlf_20160423_1405_0e9a2e79.mp3

DLF-Audio Archive:

http://www.deutschlandradio.de/audio-archiv.260.de.html?drau:broadcast_id=99

Within the radio interview the discussants also mentioned the statement "Excellent Research Requires Excellent Support of Young Researchers" by the Graduate Schools.

A summary of the statement is available at: http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/bghs/statement_GS_en.pdf

Various media have already reported the news regarding the Excellence Initiative or are planning to do so in the next few days. For further information about the discussion on the Excellence Initiative up from 2017, please visit the blog BGHS.NEWS