Building and strengthening community

Text: Miriam Hoffmeyer

“We were dancing on the ship with such gusto that the captain decided to do an extra loop around Liberty Island to prolong the party.” When Dr Daniel Kramer thinks back to the DAAD centenary event in New York in April 2025, the one thing that sticks most in his memory is the sense of community: “What was nice about the meeting was that it brought different generations together.” Kramer heads the International Studies Office at the University of Virginia and for many years was Director of the Fulbright Program for American students in Washington, one of whose partners is the DAAD. “Because every single person had something to contribute, a huge amount of positive energy was generated,” he says. It wasn’t just happy memories that Kramer took home with him though – but also a German-US-American exchange programme in medicine and engineering. The reception given by the DAAD and the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes) to mark the 25th anniversary of their joint Carlo Schmid Programme had thrown him together with just the right colleague.

“What was nice about the meeting was that it brought different generations together.”

Dr Daniel Kramer, University of Virginia

Kirsten Habbich, Head of Section of Events at the DAAD, explains that it’s no coincidence that DAAD events often produce direct outcomes. Especially the DAAD’s meetings for former and current scholarship holders combine subject-specific input with an opportunity for exchange in a relaxed atmosphere. “Such settings often give rise to the best ideas for academic cooper­ation,” says Habbich.

The meeting in April in New York for example combined panels on international higher education and research partnerships or on alumni work in North America with highlights such as a gala concert at Carnegie Hall and the party on the Hudson River. Robust transatlantic relations are of special importance to the DAAD not only on account of the current global political situation but also because DAAD founder Carl Joachim Friedrich already cultivated close ties with the United States. 100 years ago, the DAAD’s story began there with 13 scholarships for German students that Friedrich was able to make available thanks to a pledge from the New York Institute of International Education.

The DAAD’s guiding philosophy also came courtesy of Friedrich: to foster personal development through cross-border academic exchange. “We create networks of friends of Germany across the globe,” says DAAD President Professor Joybrato Mukherjee, adding that it is personal connections between ­people that strengthen the global network of the DAAD and make it so resilient. “That’s why bringing people together is at the heart of the DAAD’s work.”

The centenary year 2025 has offered more oppor­tunities for joint celebration and exchange than ­ever. Alumni meetings were held for example in New York, Paris and Bonn. Meetings for scholarship holders in Heidelberg, Bonn and Berlin each brought around 500 participants together. Such meetings aim to give participants the chance to get to know the DAAD on a more personal level, says Kirsten Habbich. That is why staff from all scholarship sections are always present at the events in Germany, she explains. “This involves quite a bit of organisation, but it’s important to ensure that scholarship holders can form a lasting bond with the DAAD and with Germany.” She says that the challenging global situation has not had any impact on the meetings so far. On the contrary, the neutral setting sometimes allows conversations to arise between people from countries in conflict with one another. “A stay in Germany can broaden one’s horizons,” believes Habbich. “This highlights the way the DAAD is able to build bridges between people and, ideally, bring about exchange even in difficult contexts.”

“It was an opportunity for me to broaden my network and engage in exchange with other alumni associations so that we could all learn from each other. It worked wonderfully well.”

Dr Phuong Nguyen Thi Bich, Participant from Vietnam

In March 2025, the DAAD hosted a meeting for its alumni associations around the world for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic. Representatives of 60 DAAD alumni associations from more than 40 countries gathered in Bonn for four days to jointly develop new projects. The associations play a key role in internationalising science and academia and contribute to thriving inter­national relations. “It was an opportunity for me to broaden my network and engage in exchange with other alumni associations so that we could all learn from each other. It worked wonderfully well,” says Dr Phuong Nguyen Thi Bich from the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (USSH) in Ho Chi Minh City. A German studies scholar, she is the deputy chair of the Vietnam-Germany Friendship Association (VGFA), the largest association of Germany alumni in the south of Vietnam with around 300 members. Roughly half of them are DAAD alumnae and alumni. In 2025, one of the projects the VGFA supported was the German Career Truck that the DAAD used across Vietnam to advertise opportun­ities for studying, training and working in Germany.

The anniversary meeting for scholarship holders held in April at Heidelberg University – where the DAAD was founded in 1925 – gave participants a strong sense of the organisation’s history. In his commemorative speech, Professor Stephan Harbarth, President of Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court and a DAAD alumnus himself, highlighted what the DAAD has been consistently doing for the past 100 years – building bridges between people, cultures, academic systems and disciplines. His appreciation of the DAAD’s work could hardly have come across more clearly, while the Heidelberg meeting was a prime example of what sets the DAAD apart: diversity in action, international friendships and a firm belief in the power of exchange.

Scholarship holders from 90 countries attended a meeting at the University of Bonn – another symbolic place in the history of the DAAD: after the Second World War, the DAAD was re-established in the university’s Senate Hall in August 1950.

“I really liked the mix,” says Juan Torres Celi. He is currently conducting research at the Center for Development Research (ZEF) at the University of Bonn on an EPOS scholarship and had been invited to the meeting as a scholarship holder: “First the opening ceremony, then useful information about funding programmes and insurance – and then of course the chance to meet people from all over the world.” The doctoral student from Ecuador even reconnected with a friend from his German class at the event.

At a meeting for scholarship holders in Berlin, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul was impressed by the biographies of those of whom he talked to ahead of the event: “They are part of the global exchange and the personal encounters between people without which science and academic education are not possible – and without which foreign policy is not possible, either,” he emphasised in his opening address. At Freie Universität Berlin, around 500 scholarship holders enjoyed not only the official supporting programme but also the gala dinner and the party afterwards at the Admirals­palast theatre in Berlin.

The anniversary was also celebrated on board a ship on the River Rhine in Bonn, highlighting the DAAD’s links to the city of Bonn, which is where the organisation is headquartered today. The celebration paid tribute to all those who have supported the DAAD throughout its long journey and continue to contribute to its mission through their daily work. Among them were 800 current and former DAAD staff members, Bonn’s then mayor, Katja Dörner, and partners from the Bonn region. The ship was a reminder of those first scholarship holders who sailed to the United States by sea 100 years ago – a journey that took ten to twelve days in 1925. “What we hear most often from alumnae and ­alumni is that the funding constituted a life-changing moment for them,” says DAAD President ­Joybrato Mukherjee. “We want to continue making a key contribution to the personal development of ­people with an international and cosmopolitan mindset by enabling international academic exchange and, in so doing, to successfully shape a global transformation that affects us all.” For Daniel Kramer from the University of Virginia, his DAAD scholarship in Regensburg in 1990 proved to be just such a moment: “My year in Germany wasn’t just very exciting, it was also a springboard for my career,” he explains. “Like many other alumnae and alumni, I would like to give something back.” The project developed in New York could be a good way of doing just that. —

Let us introduce you to extraordinary DAAD alumnae and alumni who have created new perspectives, overcome barriers and brought about lasting change in science, society or culture. In its centenary year,
the DAAD has documented their stories in multimedia portraits. Take a look!

Anniversary website: www.daad.de/en/daad100

The high point of the DAAD’s centenary year was the ceremony at the Humboldt Forum in Berlin on 6 May 2025, which was attended by around 500 guests from politics, academia and civil society. In a video message, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier highlighted the DAAD’s role as a “door opener for foreign science policy”. “I have seen, and continue to see, how academic exchange turns people from all continents into friends, indeed into ambassadors for our country, many of them maintaining lifelong ties with Germany,” he said.

Watch the video message given by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier here: www.bundespraesident.de