The University of Oldenburg has cleared the first hurdle in the Excellence Initiative:
The "Hearing4all" cluster of excellence proposal, which was developed in collaboration with hearing researchers from Hanover, has been positively evaluated. The full proposal must now be submitted by 1 September. The German Research Foundation and the German Council of Science and Humanities reviewed a total of 107 proposals in the "Cluster of Excellence" funding line, 27 of which were evaluated favourably. The final funding decision will be made in June 2012.

"The positive vote in favour of one of our two submitted proposals for a cluster of excellence is a great success for our university. The German Research Foundation and the German Council of Science and Humanities have thus recognised the work of our excellently networked Oldenburg hearing researchers. Now it will be a matter of us - together with our strong partners - using our scientific expertise and resources for our ambitious goal and working intensively on the full proposal," explained University President Prof. Dr Babette Simon.

"The Oldenburg and Hanover hearing researchers are very pleased 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 cluster of excellence "Hearing4all". 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 of physics, medicine, biology, engineering and psychology, which has now advanced to the next round thanks to very good international reviews.

Hearing for all, in all situations and for all people with varying degrees of hearing loss is to be achieved through a combination of interdisciplinary basic, applied and clinical research, with a further focus on promoting young talent and collaborative research with industry. Also involved are the Jade University of Applied Sciences as well as the non-university research institutions HörTech Center of Competence, the Fraunhofer Project Group for Hearing, Speech and Audio Technology, the hearing centres in Hanover and Oldenburg and twelve industrial partners who have already achieved respectable success in the federal cutting-edge cluster competition in the "Auditory Valley" network.

Oldenburg and Hanover are among the world's leading locations for medical technology, hearing research, audiology, medical diagnostics and therapy. Around 80 per cent of all hearing aids worldwide contain a piece of know-how from Oldenburg. The largest number of hearing implants in the world was carried out in the ENT clinic at Hanover Medical School.