Government claims success for elite universities drive

For a decade, Germany’s government has tried to explode the myth that all the country’s universities are equal. In 2006, it launched an 11-year, €4.6 billion (US$5.2 billion) programme that aimed to make the best German universities more competitive with the likes of Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard. The campaign, called the Excellence Initiative, led to 14 institutions gaining the common – although unofficial – label of ‘elite’, write Quirin Schiermeier and Richard van Noorden for Nature.com. Read more...