The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD; ), founded in 1925, is a joint organization of German universities and student bodies to foster their international relations. Since 1 January 2020, the president has been Joybrato Mukherjee.

Organisation

''DAAD'' is a private, federally funded and state-funded, self-governing national agency of the institutions of higher education in Germany, representing 365 German higher education institutions (100 universities and technical universities, 162 general universities of applied sciences, and 52 colleges of music and art) 003 The DAAD itself does not offer programs of study or courses, but awards competitive, merit-based grants for use toward study and/or research in Germany at any of the

accredited Accreditation is the independent, third-party evaluation of a conformity assessment body (such as certification body, inspection body or laboratory) against recognised standards, conveying formal demonstration of its impartiality and competence to ...

German institutions of higher education. It also awards grants to German students, doctoral students, and scholars for studies and research abroad. With an annual budget of 522 million Euros and supporting approximately 140.000 individuals world-wide, the DAAD is in fact the largest such academic grant organisation worldwide The organisation was founded on 1 January 1925 but closed down in 1945, only to be re-founded again in 1950.

Headquarters and regional offices

The DAAD headquarters are in

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

and there are 21 regional offices that exist to provide information and advice on study and research opportunities, as well as available grants, tailored to students and academics within their region.

The DAAD New York office serves residents of the United States and Canada who are enrolled or employed at American and Canadian higher education institutions and would like to study or pursue research in Germany. From the perspective of this side of the exchange, the DAAD's mission is to facilitate American and Canadian students' access to the distinguished German institutions of higher education and research—from research universities (Universitäten) to universities of applied sciences (

Fachhochschule A (; plural ), abbreviated FH, is a university of applied sciences (UAS), in other words a Hochschule, German tertiary education institution that provides professional education in many applied sciences and applied arts, such as engineering, te ...

), colleges of music and art, libraries and archives, and research institutions such as the Max Planck Institutes.

DAAD scholarships and programmes

The DAAD scholarship grants administered by the DAAD abroad are available to students of all academic disciplines and at each academic degree level, including

undergraduates Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...

, graduating undergraduates and recent graduates with a BA,

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

students,

doctoral A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

students,

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

candidates and

postdoctoral A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). Postdocs most commonly, but not always, have a temporary acade ...

scholars, and faculty. The DAAD worldwide network also includes around 50 information centers and around 450 DAAD lecturer positions
DAAD scholarship
is one of the top scholarships offered by European country Germany for outstanding international students. Every year Students are selected on merit basis and offered
DAAD scholarship
to study postgraduate degree masters and PhD in German universities.

Notable DAAD Alumni

DAAD alumni have occupied key roles in government, academia and industry. The alumni include winners of prestigious awards such as the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

MacArthur Fellows Program The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and ...

, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize,

Grammy Awards The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious a ...

Academy Awards The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence in ...

(Oscars) as well as several

heads of state A head of state is the public persona of a sovereign state.#Foakes, Foakes, pp. 110–11 " he head of statebeing an embodiment of the State itself or representative of its international persona." The name given to the office of head of sta ...

. Additionally, at least 12

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

Winners are DAAD alumni. For example, Günter Blobel (1999), Gao Xingjian (2000), Wolfgang Ketterle (2001), Imre Kertész (2002),

Wangari Maathai Wangari is a name of Kikuyu origin that may refer to: * Wangari Maathai (1940–2011), Kenyan environmental and political activist * Catherine Wangari Wainaina (born 1985), Kenyan beauty pageant contestant * Margaret Wangari Muriuki (born 1986), K ...

(2004),

Herta Müller Herta Müller (; born 17 August 1953) is a Romanian-German novelist, poet, essayist and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was born in Nițchidorf (; ), Timiș County in Romania; her native languages are German and Romanian. Si ...

(2009),

Mario Vargas Llosa Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquess of Vargas Llosa (28 March 1936 – 13 April 2025) was a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist and politician. Vargas Llosa was one of the most significant Latin American novelists and essayists a ...

(2009),

Svetlana Alexievich Svetlana Alexandrovna Alexievich (born 31 May 1948) is a Belarusian investigative journalist, essayist and oral historian who writes in Russian. She was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to s ...

(2015), Leo Hoffmann-Axthelm (2017),

Olga Tokarczuk Olga Nawoja Tokarczuk (; born 29 January 1962) is a Polish writer, activist, and public intellectual. She is one of the most critically acclaimed and successful authors of her generation in Poland. In 2019, she was awarded the 2018 Nobel Pri ...

(2018),

Peter Handke Peter Handke (; born 6 December 1942) is an Austrians, Austrian novelist, playwright, translator, poet, film director, and screenwriter. He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has ...

(2019), Reinhard Genzel (2020) and others.

List of notable DAAD alumni

Politics and public service

Michelle Bachelet Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria (; born 29 September 1951) is a Chilean politician who served as President of Chile from 2006 to 2010 and again from 2014 to 2018, becoming the first woman to hold the presidency. She was re-elected in December ...

, politician, former president of Chile and former

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is a department of the United Nations Secretariat that works to promote and protect human rights that are guaranteed under international law and stipulated in the Univer ...

* Karl Lauterbach, German scientist, physician, politician and Federal Minister of Health since 2021 *

William Ruto William Kipchirchir Samoei Arap Ruto (born 21 January 1967) is a Kenyan politician who is the fifth and current president of Kenya since 13 September 2022. Prior to becoming president, he served as the first elected Deputy President of Kenya, ...

, Kenyan politician and fifth

president of Kenya The president of the Republic of Kenya () is the head of state and head of government of the Republic of Kenya. The president is also the head of the executive branch of the Government of Kenya and is the commander-in-chief of the Kenya De ...

* Khin San Yi, Burmese development economist, former Minister for Education of Myanmar and Minister for Science and Technology of Myanmar * Harold Oscar Levy, American lawyer,

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

investor, educator and former Chancellor of the

New York City Department of Education The New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) is the department of the government of New York City that manages the city's public school system. The City School District of the City of New York (more commonly known as New York City Publ ...

* Gitanas Nausėda, Lithuanian politician, economist, banker and ninth president of Lithuania

Academia and sience

* Söhnke M. Bartram, financial economist *

Ghil'ad Zuckermann Ghil'ad Zuckermann (, ; ) is an Israeli-born language revivalist and linguist who works in contact linguistics, lexicology and the study of language, culture and identity. Zuckermann was awarded the Rubinlicht Prize (2023) "for his researc ...

, linguist and revivalist * Claudia Kemfert, German (environmental) economist and head of the Energy, Transportation, and Environment department at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) * Juliane Kokott, German Advocate General at the

Court of Justice of the European Union The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ( or "''CJUE''"; Latin: Curia) is the Judiciary, judicial branch of the European Union (EU). Seated in the Kirchberg, Luxembourg, Kirchberg quarter of Luxembourg City, Luxembourg, this EU ins ...

''(CJEU)'' and

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

at the University of St. Gallen * Jennifer Hunt, professor of economics at

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

, former deputy assistant secretary for microeconomic analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and former Chief Economist to the U.S. Secretary of Labor

Literature and journalism

* Jeffrey Eugenides, American writer (e.g., ''Middlesex'') and winner of the

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during ...

(2003) *

Margaret Atwood Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic, and an inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight chi ...

, Canadia writer (e.g., ''The Handmaid’s Tale''), novelist, poet,

literary critic A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature' ...

, inventor and two-times Booker Prize Winner * Ryszard Kapuściński, Polish journalist, photographer, poet, author and was considered a candidate for the

Nobel Prize in Literature The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in ...

Susan Sontag Susan Lee Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, critic, and public intellectual. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on "Camp", Notes on 'Ca ...

, American writer,

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as Art criticism, art, Literary criticism, literature, Music journalism, music, Film criticism, cinema, Theater criticism, theater, Fas ...

, and

public intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and Human self-reflection, reflection about the nature of reality, especially the nature of society and proposed solutions for its normative problems. Coming from the wor ...

Richard Ford Richard Ford (born February 16, 1944) is an American novelist and short story author, and writer of a series of novels featuring the character Frank Bascombe. Ford's first collection of short stories, ''Rock Springs (short stories), Rock Springs ...

, American

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...

author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize (''Independence Day)'' * Cristina Rivera Garza, Mexican author, professor, winner of Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur Fellow * László Krasznahorkai, Hungarian novelist and screenwriter *

Carlos Fuentes Carlos Fuentes Macías (; ; November 11, 1928 – May 15, 2012) was a Mexican novelist and essayist. Among his works are ''The Death of Artemio Cruz'' (1962), '' Aura'' (1962), '' Terra Nostra'' (1975), '' The Old Gringo'' (1985) and '' Christop ...

, Mexican novelist and essayist

Film, theater and visual arts

* Willie Doherty, Irish artist and two-times

Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award). ...

nominee *

Jim Jarmusch James Robert Jarmusch ( ; born January 22, 1953) is an American film director, screenwriter and musician. He has been a major proponent of independent film, independent cinema since the 1980s, directing films such as ''Stranger Than Paradise'' ...

, American film director (e.g., ''Ghost Dog'', ''Paterson''), screenwriter and musician *

Nam June Paik Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a South Korean artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super highway" ...

, South Korean artist * Bob Wilson, American theatre director * Emmett Williams, American

Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers, and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental performance art, art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finishe ...

poet and visual artist *

Sebastián Lelio Sebastián Lelio Watt (born 8 March 1974) is a Chilean director, screenwriter, editor and producer. He received critical acclaim for directing the films '' Gloria'' (2013) and '' A Fantastic Woman'' (2017), the latter of which won an Academy Awa ...

, Chilean director, screenwriter, editor and producer and winner of the

Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a ...

(''A Fantastic Woman'')

Music and composition

Unsuk Chin Unsuk Chin ( ; born July 14, 1961) is a South Korean composer of contemporary classical music, who is based in Berlin, Germany. Chin was a self-taught pianist from a young age and studied composition at Seoul National University as well as with ...

, South Korean composer *

Krzysztof Penderecki Krzysztof Eugeniusz Penderecki (; 23 November 1933 – 29 March 2020) was a Polish composer and conductor. His best-known works include '' Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima'', Symphony No. 3, his '' St Luke Passion'', '' Polish Requiem'', '' ...

, Polish composer, conductor and holder of four

* Shelley Hirsch, American vocalist, performance artist, composer, improviser and writer

Design and architecture

* Philippa Lindenthal, German fashion designer and professor * Thomas Spiegelhalter, German-American academic and architect

Funding

The DAAD is mainly funded by the German government and the European Union. In 2017, the DAAD received 522 million Euro. * Foreign Office (Germany): EUR 185m *

Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Germany) The Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (; abbreviated BMFTR) is a Cabinet of Germany, cabinet-level ministry of Germany. It is headquartered in Bonn, with an office in Berlin. The Ministry provides funding for research projects an ...

: EUR 137m *

Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (Germany) The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (, ; abbreviated BMZ) is a cabinet-level ministry of the Federal Republic of Germany. Its main office is at the former German Chancellery in Bonn with a second major office at the ...

: EUR 54m *

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

: EUR 110m *Others: EUR 36m

Leadership for Syria Programme

During the fall of 2014, the DAAD, supported by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, launched a program called the ''Leadership for Syria''. The declared aim of the program was to create "a select elite among Syria's future leadership" for "active participation in organizing" post-war Syria. In the initial stage of the program, 271 Syrians seen as suitable for university

scholarship A scholarship is a form of Student financial aid, financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, Multiculturalism, diversity and inclusion, athleti ...

s were chosen from potential candidates who were "either still living in Syria or in one of the bordering countries (Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey), or who had fled to Germany". The former were then brought to Germany to join those participants who were already there. The scholarships were to various universities throughout Germany. The German Foreign Office funded the bulk of the scholarships (200) with the balance being sponsored by

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg ( ; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a states of Germany, German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million i ...

(50) and

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a States of Germany, state () in Old states of Germany, Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the List of German states by population, most ...

(21). The scholarship

curriculum In education, a curriculum (; : curriculums or curricula ) is the totality of student experiences that occur in an educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view of the student's experi ...

included an introductory language course for those students who were not already fluent in, or otherwise had no prior knowledge of, German. Alongside this was a concomitant obligatory element intended to imbue the planned future Syrian elite with the "fundamental and practical knowledge and skills in

political sciences Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and ...

economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

social sciences Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among members within those societies. The term was former ...

, as well as operational

competence Broad concept article: *Competence (polyseme), capacity or ability to perform effectively Competence or competency may also refer to: *Competence (human resources), ability of a person to do a job properly **Competence-based management, performa ...

References

External links

DAAD Homepage
{{Authority control Academic transfer Government scholarships Organizations established in 1925 Higher education in Germany Educational foundations Education policy in Germany Foundations based in Germany Higher education organisations based in Europe Organisations based in Bonn Study abroad programs Social engineering (political science) German involvement in the Syrian civil war