The German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst – DAAD) records its first balance sheet around a year and a half after the start of the Hilde Domin programme for persecuted students and doctoral candidates. This scholarship programme for at risk students and doctoral candidates enjoys strong international demand. So far, 135 people have been enabled to come to Germany with a scholarship – most of them from Afghanistan. 

‘Students and researchers worldwide must fear for their safety. The current situation in Iran is a further alarming example of the repression that students are facing. The DAAD is using the Hilde Domin programme to campaign for the freedom of academics who feel themselves to be at risk in their home country. They can safely continue their studies or their research here in Germany’, said DAAD President Professor Joybrato Mukherjee. ‘In a world that is increasingly marked by political unrest and conflict, our primary concern is to support academics who are at risk, and to offer them a safe haven here in our country’, the DAAD president continued.

Demand exceeds supply

The Hilde Domin programme is in strong international demand; the number of nominations submitted to the DAAD is constantly rising. Until now, almost 800 nominations have already been submitted in the first three selection rounds, there were also over 170 nominations relating to a special Afghanistan selection for which the Federal Foreign Office provided extra funds. This resulted in 135 scholarships being awarded to nominees proposed by higher education institutions, as well as human rights and other organisations. The massive demand means that the DAAD is constantly in touch with German and European partners, such as the Philipp Schwartz Initiative, to generate synergies with existing protection programmes.

Numbers from selections to date

Most of these 135 beneficiaries complete or finish a master's degree in Germany, followed by doctoral funding. Not least because of the special funding, the majority of scholarships were awarded to beneficiaries from Afghanistan – 74 in total. Other beneficiary countries of origin include Belarus, Myanmar and Syria. The gender ratio is balanced; 56% of beneficiaries are male, 42% female, 2% diverse.

The Hilde Domin programme

The DAAD has been offering this programme financed by the Federal Foreign Office and named after German poet Hilde Domin since April 2021. This writer, poet, and essayist of Jewish faith had to flee Germany during the Nazi era and lived for a long time in the Dominican Republic. The programme aims to assist at risk students and doctoral candidates refused the right to education in their country of origin to take up or continue a degree course or a PhD in Germany. Their objective is to obtain an undergraduate or doctoral degree from a German higher education institution. The students and doctoral candidates nominated and selected as part of the programme receive a scholarship for a study programme of their choice and according to their qualifications. This scholarship covers the required costs relating to the entire duration of their undergraduate or doctoral degree.