The DAAD is taking a new approach to student funding in the USA: As of this year, it is a partner in the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program. By sponsoring 40 undergraduate students from the US each year, the DAAD is strengthening the participation of previously less represented social groups in its international exchange programs.
Since early July, many DAAD alumae and alumni have been sharing what their DAAD funding means to them, using #IgotFundedByDAAD. One former DAAD alumnus initiated the hashtag, now more than 1,800 tweets with it can be found online. In more in-depth testimonials, a few former scholarship holders have since been expressing how their DAAD scholarship influenced their professional and personal development. As a finale of this series, read a statement by Dr Jamil Salmi, a global tertiary education expert who has been advising governments, universities, and others worldwide for more than 25 years. He told DAAD Aktuell about the importance of international scientific exchange and universities in the light of current crises.
As part of the “Bilateral Academic Exchange Program”, the DAAD has entered into a new cooperation agreement with the partner organisation veski for the Australian State of Victoria. The first grant recipient, the virologist Prof. Jason Mackenzie, has completed his residence in Germany.
Twenty-one representatives of leading universities, research institutions and funding organizations in the United States and Canada, along with experts on educational policy, visited Germany in June. At the invitation of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), they participated in a one-week “Germany Today” information tour. Four of the participants describe their impressions.
With the “DAAD Research Briefs”, the DAAD offers a publication series that aims to make current academic findings comprehensible and usable for higher education practitioners. In the fourth issue, Dr Robert O'Dowd, Associate Professor for English as a Foreign Language and Applied Linguistics at the Universidad de León in Spain, reports on the possible uses of Virtual Exchange formats in international higher education and their benefits from the perspective of students and teachers.
