In highly correlated condensed matter systems, electron-electron and electron-phonon correlations lead to a broad range of novel and unusual phenomena, which are interesting from the point of view of both fundamental research and practical applications. To gain new insight into fundamental phenomena in this thriving field of research we perform experiments with ultrafast time and nanometer spatial resolution (subproject UP1) and experiments using ultrashort pulses with high electric field amplitudes in the midinfrared and THz spectral range (subproject UP2).