German exchange cuts ‘threaten global reputation’

Plans to cut the budget of German research exchanges will hit several major programmes and risk undermining the country’s reputation abroad, funders have warned.

The government plans to cut the overall finances of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by 10 per cent in 2023, a change that would force the research exchanges it funds to downsize.

The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) said long-term study and doctoral scholarships for international students and researchers would have to be reduced by 50 per cent, a loss of about 700 each year.

The cancellation of lecture and conference trips, summer and winter courses and all other short-term work would affect about 5,000 people a year, DAAD said, while some 100 lectureships at foreign universities would have to be left vacant.

Germany’s traffic light coalition of Social Democrats, the Free Democratic Party and the Greens entered office in December 2021 promising a 3 per cent annual budget increase for DAAD, but under plans announced this month it faces a 6 per cent reduction.

Politicians also promised a new innovation agency and extra funding for teaching and learning, but experts have said they may face hard choices ahead.

The proposed cuts “reduce the international attractiveness and competitiveness of Germany and its universities as a location for science”, DAAD president Joybrato Mukherjee said in a statement, adding that the financial constraints come at a crucial time, when leadership in academic exchange is “particularly necessary”.

“When German universities cooperate with international partners, in many, many cases they’re actually dependent on funds they get from us,” Michael Harms, DAAD’s deputy secretary general, told Times Higher Education.

“There are so many things we really need to tackle internationally, and then this sign is the exact opposite – that we actually weaken resources for cooperation,” he said. “We fear that Germany’s reputation as a solid and stable partner may suffer.”

Germany’s Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and its Goethe Institute, which are also partly funded by the federal Foreign Ministry, face an overall 3 per cent cut for 2022, with the former also due an additional 8 per cent reduction in 2023 compared with this year.

That means that the foundation’s prestigious Humboldt Research Fellowships, which fund stays for international researchers in Germany, will be even more oversubscribed. “We have to refuse so many excellent applications which normally would have obtained funding without question. And we can’t give any convincing reason except the budget cuts. I clearly feel that undermines our reputation,” said Humboldt Foundation secretary general Enno Aufderheide.

The cuts would also mean that fewer fellowships are awarded for the foundation’s Philipp Schwartz Initiative, open to international researchers who face a credible threat of imprisonment or professional discrimination. “This is a signal that undermines trust and our commitment to the field of foreign policy,” said Dr Aufderheide.

“Over decades, we have saved on spending for defence,” said Volker Stanzel, a senior distinguished fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and former ambassador to China and Japan, referring to the €100 billion (£83 billion) in defence spending that Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, announced after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Dr Stanzel said the cuts would be a “bitter pill” that “affects exactly those fields or work and those people with whom we want to improve our relationships in the future”.

The planned cuts are due to be debated by parliament after it returns from summer break in mid-August.

ben.upton@timeshighereducation.com