Anniversary DAAD turns 100: Meeting of Scholarship Holders at Universität Heidelberg
8 April 2025
German Academic Exchange Service celebrates special anniversary at a historical location
The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) has celebrated its centenary with a meeting of scholarship holders at Heidelberg University – the place where one of the largest international exchange organisations was founded in 1925 by the Heidelberg student and later political scientist Carl Joachim Friedrich.
The DAAD scholarship holders‘ meeting opened with a festive event in the Great Hall of the New University. Participants, including approximately 460 scholarship-holders from all over the world, not only looked back over the past but also reflected on the future of the worldwide exchange of knowledge and culture.
Prof. Dr Stephan Harbarth, President of the Federal Constitutional Court and an alumnus of the German Academic Exchange Service and Heidelberg University, gave the keynote speech under the heading “From St Paul’s Church to the Basic Law in a united Europe”. Prof. Dr Frauke Melchior, Rector of Heidelberg University, and DAAD President Prof. Dr Joybrato Mukherjee opened the meeting, which took place at Heidelberg University from 4 to 6 April 2025.
In the past 100 years, the DAAD has supported the international exchange of around three million students, doctoral candidates and researchers. In addition, the German Academic Exchange Service promotes further international projects such as the Heidelberg Center Latin America in Santiago de Chile, founded by Heidelberg University; from autumn 2009 to mid-2024 it received funding as one of five Centers of Excellence worldwide.