Sunday, April 7, 2019
DAAD scholarships and programmes
The DAAD grants administered by the DAAD abroad are available to students of all academic disciplines and at each academic degree level, including undergraduates, graduating undergraduates and recent graduates with a BA, Masters degree students, doctoral students, PhD candidates and postdoctoral scholars, and faculty.
The DAAD worldwide network also includes around 50 information centres and around 450 DAAD lecturer positions.
Funding
The DAAD is mainly funded by the German government and the European Union. In 2012, the DAAD received 407.4 million Euro.[2]
Foreign Office (Germany): EUR 178.6m
Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Germany): EUR 96.8m
Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (Germany): EUR 37.2m
European Union: EUR 57.2m
Others: EUR 37.6m
Involvement in the Syrian Civil War
See also: Foreign involvement in the Syrian Civil War § Support for the Syrian opposition
During the fall of 2014, the DAAD, supported by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, launched a program called the Leadership for Syria.[3] 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.[3] In practice, the goal was to ensure that what was at the time (late 2014) seen as an inevitable post-regime government would be firmly founded on the basis of liberal democracy, and more over, would be friendly to Germany's foreign interests.
In the initial stage of the program, 271 Syrians seen as suitable for university scholarships 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".[3] 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 Wurttemberg (50) and North Rhine Westphalia (21).[3]
The scholarship curriculum 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, economics, social sciences, as well as operational competence."[3]
In late 2015, plans were being drawn up for a massive expansion of the program during 2016.[3] However even by that time, a major reversal of fortunes for the Syrian opposition, in particular those of its nominally pro-western elements, was calling into doubt not only that expansion but also the rationale of the entire 'Leadership For Syria' program. As of early 2016, the future of the program along with that of similar international initiatives is in question.
