This research addresses two important developments in the academic field: First, universities are transforming into organisational actors, gaining more responsibilities and capacities for strategic action, and second, competition has reached a new level. An important driver of competition and universities' development towards strategic actorhood is funding contests in which actors compete with proposals over a limited timeframe with clear evaluation criteria. In Germany, funding contests are central to the crystallisation of a broader competitive positioning and universities develop different strategic approaches in relation to them. We focus on two large-scale funding contests to analyse universities' heterogeneous positioning strategies: The German Excellence Initiative (EI) and the Quality Pact for Teaching (QPL). We empirically develop three ideal types of universities in terms of strategic positioning (lions, niche providers and game players) and examine different strategic approaches taken by universities when relating to internal and external reference groups.