Since 2016, sixteen new LOEWE research initiatives have been chosen for support in the competitive selection process. At the beginning of 2018, a total of nine new LOEWE projects got started – two centres and seven clusters. These will be funded with
 approximately €66 million until 2022. These initiatives include the LOEWE centre TBG – Translational Biodiversity Genomics, with lead management by the Senckenberg Nature Research Society in Frankfurt. The colleagues at the LOEWE research centre TBG investigate how the genetic material of living things can be systematically collected, understood and put to use for society. In the LOEWE research centre DRUID (Novel Drug Targets against Poverty-Related and Neglected Tropical Infectious Diseases), the Philipps-Universität Marburg, the Goethe University Frankfurt,
 the TH Mittelhessen University of Applied Sciences and the PaulEhrlich-Institut in Langen have come together under the lead management of the Justus Liebig University Giessen. They are researching new strategies that can be employed against tropical infectious diseases. Since 20018, LOEWE research clusters have been researching phenomena in computer science and mathematics (Software Factory 4.0 and Uniformized structures in arithmetic and geometry, both at TU Darmstadt), biology and medicine (DynaMem and CePTER, both at Goethe University Frankfurt), production technology (ALLEGRO – High-performance aluminium alloy components, University of Kassel) and fruit and wine cultivation (AROMAplus – Aroma and functional compounds from vines and fruit, Hochschule Geisenheim University). For the first time in connection with the LOEWE programme,
 a project at a school of art in Hessen has also received funding:
 The researchers of the LOEWE research cluster Infrastructure – Design – Society (IDG), located at and under the lead management of the University of Art and Design Offenbach am Main, are working on the design of new, environmentally friendly mobility offerings. A total of approximately €30 million will be made available for these nine LOEWE research clusters in the coming four years. Since January 2017, researchers at the Technical University Darmstadt (lead management) the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences and the TH Mittelhessen University of Applied Sciences have been working together in the project BAMP! – Building with paper. They are investigating how paper can be practically used in mobile structures and facades. In another research cluster, their colleagues at the Justus Liebig University Giessen (lead management) are working together with researchers at the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe – Institute of the Leibniz Association (Marburg) in the project Regions of Conflict in Eastern Europe. They are concentrating in particular on the question of how conflict situations can be resolved more quickly making use of new research results. In the LOEWE research cluster Religious Positioning, researchers at the Goethe University Frankfurt (lead management) and the Justus Liebig University Giessen are examining the historical experience and religious resources of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The fourth cluster from 2017, MegaSyn – Control and design of megasynthases, is researching new ways to make use of the potential of megasynthases for the design of new antibiotics as well as for other purposes. This cluster brings together a research initiative involving the Goethe University Frankfurt (lead management), the Philipps-Universität Marburg, the Max Planck Institute for Biophysics (Frankfurt), the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology (Marburg) and the TH Mittelhessen University of Applied Sciences (Giessen).

The four new LOEWE research clusters of this new round of funding are receiving approximately €17.7 million in the period 2017 to 2020. The LOEWE initiatives CompuGene – Computer-assisted processes for generating complex genetic circuits, iNAPO – Ion-conducting nanopores (lead management of both at TU Darmstadt) and Prehistoric Conflict Research (lead management: Goethe University Frankfurt) are receiving state funding totalling approximately €12 million for the three-year period. The aim of the work being done in the LOEWE research cluster CompuGene is to use synthetic biology to equip biological systems with novel characteristics which are not present in nature and then to put these new characteristics to use, for example, in medicine, in biotechnology and in biocomputing. The LOEWE-iNAPO scientists are also taking nature as the basis for their work. They are building sensors in nano dimensions using models found in nature. The aim is to develop a new generation of nanosensors that bring together synthetic and biological nanopores and unite their useful characteristics so that they can be used in analytics and biomedicine, for example. With the political tensions in Eastern Europe and Western Asia, the LOEWE research cluster Prehistoric Conflict Research has gained additional topicality. The scholars working on this project are aiming to help answers questions such as: „Has war been a constant feature of human history and is it an inescapable part of human nature or is it rather a historical phenomenon and thus in some sense avoidable?“