Scientific Excellence has become the catch word for research politics, manifesting itself in the establishment of centres of excellence all over Europe as well as in the European Research Council. What is the meaning of this phenomenon? What will we find when trying to open up the black box of “scientific excellence”? The need to question evaluation processes seems intrusive, when we realize the increasing demands on knowledge production to be societally robust, not the least within the energy and environmental sector. How do we move towards a situation where scientific ‘excellence’ is automatically taken to include reflection and wider engagement concerning societal dimensions?