[In Depth] Good grades for Germany's project to build an Ivy League

The Excellence Initiative, a €4.6 billion program started in 2006 to strengthen research at select German universities, has worked well, an international panel has concluded. The initiative has had "very positive" effects all around and "has made the German university system more dynamic," the panel concludes in a report published on 29 January. Worries that it would lead to a tier of second-rate schools have not panned out, says the panel, which recommends a follow-up—with some important changes—after the initiative ends in 2017. German politicians have already pledged ​money to fund a successor program but have yet to decide how to shape it. Author: Gretchen Vogel

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