Total international academic staff and international professors at universities in Germany, by region of origin and key countries of origin, in 2023

In 2023, the number of international academic staff at German universities totalled around 65,500 academic and artistic staff with foreign citizenship. Since 2018 (around 49,600), the number of international staff has increased by 32%.
The trend appears to be slower for international professors. In 2023, a total of around 4,100 professors with foreign citizenship were appointed at German universities. Their number has increased by 21% since 2018 (around 3,400).
The key countries of origin of international academic staff at German universities are India, China, Italy, Austria, Iran, Russia, the US, Spain, France and Turkey. While France, Russia, China and Italy have recorded an increase of between 21% and 47% in the number of academic staff since 2018, this rate is below average for the US (+5%), Spain (+14%) and Austria (+18%). India (+96%), Turkey (+78%) and Iran (+61%) recorded a particularly positive development.
Austria is by far the most important country of origin for international professors, followed by Italy, Switzerland, the US and the Netherlands. Of the top 5 countries of origin for international professors, Italy has seen the highest growth (+29%) since 2018, followed by the number of Austrian professors (+15%). The numbers of professors from Switzerland and the Netherlands had a below-average growth rate (+6.4% each), which was undercut by the number of US professors with an increase of just 2%.