The Excellence Strategy is an outstanding programme of the Federal Government and the Länder to promote scientific excellence and research cooperation between universities and builds on the predecessor programme, the Excellence Initiative of 2005 - 2017/2019.
In October 2007, Bielefeld University was selected for the Excellence Initiative of the German Federal and State Governments with the Clusters of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology and the graduate school Bielefeld International Graduate School in History and Sociology. Both were funded for a further five years in 2012 following the decision by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Council of Science and Humanities in the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments.