RMU Spokesperson Brühl attends State Parliament session on “Excellence made in Hesse”
On 12 November, the Hessian State Parliament paid extensive tribute in a plenary debate to the success of the Rhine-Main Universities (RMU) in the Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state governments. Funding the alliance of Goethe University Frankfurt, Technical University of Darmstadt and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz as a University Excellence Consortium from 2027 onwards comes with great international prestige, it was stated. “With this funding, the RMU will further expand its position as an international hotspot for research and innovation,” reads the resolution “Excellence made in Hesse – Universities as a Driving Force for Cutting-Edge Research and Innovation”, adopted by the parliament.
Professor Tanja Brühl, President of the Technical University of Darmstadt and current RMU spokesperson, followed the session on site and afterwards exchanged views with members of parliament and the cabinet. “The success of the RMU is a milestone in sharpening the profile of the Frankfurt-Rhine-Main science region,” Brühl emphasized. “We are absolutely delighted about this recognition and proud of what we have achieved as an alliance. This was made possible by the tremendous commitment of many people at our three universities who contribute to the further development of our alliance with creativity and energy. I would also like to expressly thank the two states in which our alliance is based – on the occasion of the plenary debate, especially all those with political responsibility in Hesse – who have accompanied our path to becoming a University Excellence Consortium with great dedication and strongly supported it.”
At the same time, the President pointed to the reduction in funding announced by the German Research Foundation (DFG) for all 15 excellence sites, by an average of 21 percent. The reason is that the maximum possible number of five new funding cases, including two consortia, has been reached. “I am confident that, with the continued support of both states, we will find a way to narrow the gap between the funding approved and the funding requested for RMU-EXCITE,” said Brühl. “RMU-EXCITE will strengthen the attractiveness and appeal of our strong science location. We need innovative ideas and international talent to find effective answers to the challenges of our time. RMU-EXCITE opens up unique opportunities for both: to develop new things and to attract people from all over the world to our science region – and thus to secure our future viability and competitiveness in the long term. We want to realize these opportunities together with our partners.” The RMU is therefore currently making intensive preparations for the launch of RMU-EXCITE on 1 January 2027.
A key element of the support from the two states in which the alliance is based, Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate, is the administrative agreement concluded between them in October 2025. It simplifies cross-state cooperation and removes legal and administrative hurdles. Before that, in September 2025, the state parliaments of both states had acknowledged the successes already achieved by the strategic alliance and welcomed further support for the cooperation, in identically worded resolutions adopted on the same day. The current resolution emphasizes that the cooperation spanning two federal states was recognized in the review process as exemplary for cooperation within Germany’s federal system. The resolution also underlines the importance of developing this cooperation further in the long term: “The State Parliament encourages the State Government to continue actively promoting the development of the RMU, including through the ongoing development of the legal and administrative framework and, in the long term, through a state treaty between Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate.”
