How can the Excellence Initiative, which represents a comprehensive transformation of the German scientific system, be explained? This book outlines the genesis of this program by the federal and state governments to promote top-level research, examining the struggles for interpretation in politics and science regarding guiding ideas and conceptual frameworks for the scientific system since the early 1980s. The analysis is guided by a new model that integrates the theory of discursive institutionalism, the theory of interpretive power, and the discourse-analytical theory of hegemony. The book characterizes the Excellence Initiative as a result of power struggles without the involvement of science itself and provides recommendations for future competitions.