DAAD

"Deutscher Akademischer Auslandsdienst" stands for German Academic Exchange Service and is the biggest German association for academic exchanges.

The 200 and more programmes with which the DAAD pursues its goals range from short-term research or teaching exchange through to doctoral scholarships for (post) graduates from developing countries which last several years, and from information visits by delegations of foreign university rectors and vice-chancellors through to the long-term regional programme which aims to create efficient higher education systems in the Third World. Essentially, DAAD funding programmes areopen for all countries of the world and for all disciplines. In some cases, the exchange frameworks and procedures have been embedded in international cultura lagreements or defined in arrangements reached between the DAAD and its partner organisations abroad. As a rule, the other party will also offer corresponding measures (e.g., reciprocal scholarships, payments and services from the host country,exemption from fees).

A substantial proportion of the DAAD’s work is concerned with guiding, counselling and advising scholarship holders, whereby the cost to the DAAD in terms of time and energy varies considerably, depending on the nationality and the specific study situation of the scholarship holder. Visits by the relevant desk officers, even as early as during a student’s preliminary language courses in Germany, introductory events held throughout Germany at the host institutions, and scholarship holder meetings arranged by the DAAD – in the year under review in Berlin, Bonn, Freiburg, Jena and Lübeck – all belong to the regular guidance-counselling services as do the exchange of experience meetings held at the DAAD Annual Conference on Studying Abroad, plus specific continuing training events.