The Haus des Hörens in Oldenburg, the ENT clinic at Hanover Medical School and a consortium of the world's leading manufacturers of hearing aids, cochlear implants and audio systems have reached the second round of the cutting-edge cluster competition organised by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). This makes the concept one of the twelve best outlines submitted by German consortia from universities, research institutions and industry. In September, the Ministry will make the final decision on which five projects will be honoured as cutting-edge clusters. These will then each receive funding totalling 40 million euros. A total of 38 collaborative initiatives took part in the high-ranking competition. Under the title "Auditory Valley: Hearing in Lower Saxony", the vision of developing the Hanover/Oldenburg region into the world's leading development and production centre for hearing systems of all kinds is presented. The HörTech Center of Competence, the University of Oldenburg, the Hearing Centre and the OOW University of Applied Sciences are involved in the initiative under the umbrella of Oldenburg's "Haus des Hörens". "Reaching the second round is a huge success for our hearing research network. We have now moved up into the Champions League of the German research landscape." The spokesperson for the initiative, Oldenburg physicist Prof Dr Dr Birger Kollmeier, is delighted. "The cooperation between the Hannover Medical School and the Oldenburg hearing institutions in the Audiology Initiative of Lower Saxony, the support from leading international companies such as Sennheiser and finally the establishment of a Fraunhofer project group from the Ilmenau Institute in Oldenburg have also contributed to this success," adds Prof Dr Thomas Lenarz, Head of the ENT Clinic at the MHH.