A panel in Germany has bestowed the label "elite university" on six institutions which will now receive hundreds of millions in extra research funds.

An international panel of researchers and political representatives in Bonn picked six German institutions - Berlin's Free University, RWTH Aachen University and universities in Freiburg, Göttingen, Heidelberg and Constance - to join an elite list that already includes two universities in Munich and one in Karlsruhe.

A total of nine universities have made the cut and can be considered elite institutions, the German government said. Its so-called "excellence initiative" was developed in 2005. The initiative is intended to boost the country's colleges by encouraging high-level research and competition.

The nine elite universities will benefit from a total of 1.9 billion euros in extra research funding over the next five years. The major chunk of the money will come from the federal government.

The long-term goal is to put them on par with renowned institutions such as Harvard and MIT in the United States or Oxford and Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

"We wrote a new page in the history of science today," Education Minister Annette Schavan said. The minister described the initiative as "a huge step for the further development of Germany's system of science."

Money was also earmarked for 21 graduate schools that showed they knew how to promote new talent as well as for 20 "research clusters" that demonstrated they were centres of excellence in particular fields.

Proponents of the competition, which drew applications from dozens of German universities, say it has forced the country's higher education system to raise standards and reach for greater heights.

Source : www.dw-world.de