The University of Oldenburg has cleared the first hurdle in the Excellence Initiative:

“The hearing researchers from Oldenburg and Hanover are delighted to have reached the final round,” said Prof. Dr Dr Birger Kollmeier, Head of the Department of Medical Physics at the University of Oldenburg and spokesperson for the proposed “Hearing4all” cluster of excellence. Together with Prof. Dr Thomas Lenarz (Hannover Medical School), Prof. Dr Wolfgang Ertmer (Leibniz University Hannover) and 21 other renowned researchers from these three universities, he has drawn up the outline for an interdisciplinary research network combining physics, medicine, biology, engineering and psychology, which has now progressed to the next stage following very positive international peer review. The aim is to achieve hearing for everyone, in all situations and for all people with varying degrees of hearing loss, through a combination of interdisciplinary basic research, applied and clinical research, with further emphasis on supporting early-career researchers and collaborative research with industry. Also involved are Jade University of Applied Sciences and the non-university research institutions: the HörTech Centre of Excellence, the Fraunhofer Project Group for Hearing, Speech and Audio Technology, the hearing centres in Hanover and Oldenburg, and twelve industrial partners, who, as part of the “Auditory Valley” consortium, have already achieved notable successes in the Federal Government’s cutting-edge cluster competition. Oldenburg and Hanover are among the world’s leading centres for medical technology, hearing research, audiology, medical diagnostics and therapy. Around 80 per cent of all hearing aids worldwide incorporate some element of expertise from Oldenburg. The world’s highest number of cochlear implantations has been carried out at the ENT Clinic of Hannover Medical School.