The non-profit Bertold Hummel Foundation, in cooperation with the University of Music Würzburg, organizes in triennial cycles the Bertold Hummel Competition. It is designated for instrumental students at all universities of music and conservatories in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Each year different families of instruments are featured.

With this competition, the foundation encourages the younger generations of musicians to confront the works of the composer Bertold Hummel (1925-2002). With his extensive oeuvre, he is regarded as an important representative of German cultural life in the second half of the 20th century. All his life Hummel dedicated himself with great engagement to the support of promising young musicians, not only in his function as President (later Honorary President) of the University of Music Würzburg, but also in many cultural-political committees in Bavaria and even beyond the Federal Republic of Germany.