In 2007 Freie Universität Berlin won its status as one of nine Universities of Excellence in the first German Excellence Initiative. The university was able to defend this status in June 2012 with its development concept “Veritas – Iustitia – Libertas. International Network University” (funding line 3), receiving funding through 2019. The university’s proposal was based on the three founding principles of Freie Universität as well as its intensive networking in research and teaching at regional, national, and international levels, which had been so crucial for the university founded in 1948 in the island of West Berlin. The future development concept was based on the profile-building processes that had already started in the 1990s, laying the foundation for present-day Freie Universität and its independent profile within the Berlin University Alliance.