Germany has selected three universities as Universities of Excellence. Among a group of ten (Berlin, Bremen, Aachen, Würzburg, Heidelberg, Tübingen, Freiburg, 2x Munich (LMU and TU)) the committee selected three. And the winners are: Karlsruhe (TU) and the two in Munich (LMU,TU).

Although politicans were not in the majority in the committee, the selection has a lot of political sensitivity of course. Now three universities in Germany's south - which is already a much better off region job-wise than all the others - have been selected, which keeps the rest in the shade.

Now what does that really mean if you are selected as a University of Excellence? Money. In this first selection process 900 million EUR will be granted to the winners. A second selection is in spring 2007 with then another 1.1bln EUR.

The Technical University Karlsruhe (BTW the place where I studied, I had to mention that of course ) is already forming a new name "KIT" which - on purpose - looks a bit like "MIT".

Whether this is all well-spent money or simply a quick rush into throwing some money at a problem without much concept has to be seen. Clearly of course in the US Stanford University and MIT play major roles for both Silicon Valley and the New England high-tech region. It's also clear that the universities are only one piece in the puzzle: much more is needed but today is probably not the day to talk about that, instead to congratulate the winners and tell the others that they simply have to improve to become top. That is what excellence is all about.