Blog posts on the topic Researcher mobility

“International experiences often sharpen people’s sense of injustice and responsibility”

Maia Chankseliani is Professor of Comparative and International Education at the University of Oxford, specialising in the role of higher education in social, economic, and political development. Last year, she finished a three-year research project entitled ‘International mobility and world development’, for which she and her colleagues conducted over 700 interviews in 70 countries and examined various systemic effects of international academic mobility. In our interview with her, she explains what mechanisms explain how international academic mobility can reduce poverty and promote democracy and what practical conclusions for politics and science can be drawn from this, especially in times of mounting global isolationism against immigration.

Read more

“Countries and universities with a broader international network seem to be more resilient”

One of the spotlight articles of this year's main edition of ‘Wissenschaft weltoffen’ deals with the effects of exogenous shocks on international researcher mobility. In an interview with us, author Dr Andrey Lovakov, postdoctoral researcher at the German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW), explains what data he used for this analysis, what he considers to be the most important and surprising findings, and what practical conclusions can be drawn from them for the future.

Read more

“DAAD-funded publications are based on a high proportion of international collaborations”

Dr Torger Möller and Philippe Dittmann are research associates at the German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW). Together, they conducted a study examining the impact of DAAD graduate funding based on the publications of (former) DAAD grantees. In this interview, they explain their methodological approach, what they consider to be the key findings of the study, and what practical recommendations can be derived from these findings for the DAAD and other funding organisations.

Read more

“International academic mobility is continuing to develop positively despite the multiple global crises”

The new edition of Wissenschaft weltoffen was published last week. For two decades, Dr Ulrich Heublein from the German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW) was one of the main authors of the publication, which is jointly published by the DAAD and the DZHW. In our interview, he talks about its key findings and explains the content and function of the new chapter on structural aspects of internationalisation. He also takes a look back at the last 20 years of university internationalisation and ventures a look ahead to the next 20 years.

Read more

“Many of the funded researchers kept an affiliation with Germany even after the funding had ended”

How does DAAD funding for international doctoral students affect their research and publication behaviour? This question was investigated in a study recently published in the "DAAD Research in Brief" series. The study was conducted by a research team from Stellenbosch University in South Africa and Leiden University in the Netherlands. In this interview, the three members of the research team explain exactly how they went about it, which findings they consider to be particularly noteworthy and what conclusions can be drawn from this for research and practice.

Read more