Balancing academic sponsorship and foreign cultural policy
An interpretation of five decades of Humboldt Foundation sponsorship data
Introduction: Fifty years of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
By Heike Jöns (1)
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When the present Humboldt Foundation was founded on 10 December 1953, it was the third time a sponsoring institution had been created in the tradition of the distinguished naturalist, universal genius and South America researcher. He thought it was so important to promote young academic talent that he financed promising young researchers from his own personal fortune. The first Alexander von Humboldt Foundation was established in 1860, a year after the death of its eponym, with the objective of sponsoring young German academics to travel abroad. After losing its capital in the great inflation and ceasing to function in 1923, it was re-established in 1925 with the aim of supporting the studies of foreign academics and doctoral students in Germany. This work continued during the National Socialist period, too. When the Third Reich collapsed in 1945, the foundation stopped functioning. (2)
Nowadays, the current Humboldt Foundation, which after 50 years can look back on a global network of more than 23,000 academics sponsored, supports research work by foreign academics in Germany and young German academics abroad. Although it has always been neutral politically, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation's sponsorship figures mirror the history and international politics of the times. The people who, through their programmes, are able to spend a certain period abroad gaining new impetus for their research as well as for their private lives, were and are determined by the opportunities and restrictions of a specific time and a specific place.
The historical and political events of the last 50 years form the background for the mobility of fellows across national borders. With all due care with regard to creating causal connections, an attempt will be made in this article to use the sponsorship figures to position and understand the Humboldt Fellows' stays in Germany in their historic-geographical and political contexts. The justification for this undertaking is partly inherent in the Humboldt Foundation's mission. It is not only an academic sponsorship organization but also plays the role of a mediator in foreign cultural policy. This field of tension defines the special role of the Humboldt Foundation during the last 50 years and characterizes its work to this day.
In the beginning was the Humboldt Research Fellowship (3)
The work of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation started with the call for applications for fellowships in December 1953. Back then, this programme formed the essence of the Foundation's work, which has largely remained unchanged until the present day. Until the beginning of the Seventies, it was indeed the Foundation's major business. The basic principles of the programme were and are very simple: Humboldt Research Fellowships allow highly-qualified foreign scholars holding doctorates and aged up to 40 (4) to carry out a research project of their own choosing at a research institution in the Federal Republic. During the first 50 years there were more than 50,000 applicants. Of these, roughly 23,000 from more than 130 countries received Humboldt sponsorship in Germany. In terms of numbers, it is therefore the most important sponsorship programme for long-term research visits by foreign academics to German institutions of higher education and non-university research institutes.
By sponsoring guest-researchers from five continents the Humboldt Foundation practices a special form of foreign cultural policy (Foto: PhotoDisc).
 | The Humboldt Research Fellowship Programme, which has been complemented in subsequent years by other programmes, runs through this article like a leitmotif because it is particularly well-suited to acting as a seismograph of contemporary history. This is because Humboldt Fellowships are not granted according to any quotas with regard to nationality or discipline, for example, and neither religious, ideological, or political opinions nor ethnic identity or gender have any influence on selection. Humboldt Fellows have to apply independently, i.e. decide in advance whether at any given time and in any given country of origin it is of interest to them to spend time researching in Germany. Hence, the application figures and approval rates for Humboldt Fellowships provide insights into international academic interest in Germany. The Humboldt Foundation's regional sponsorship figures allow inferences to be drawn on significant international political events, changing political and economic conditions in the countries of origin (e.g., travel permission), and the concomitant changes in bilateral relations to the Federal Republic. In the following, these relationships will be traced along the most important developmental lines and interpreted in relation to the further development and diversification of Humboldt programmes decade by decade.
Read here in two weeks the first part of the Humboldt Foundation's History: The Fifties - Integration into the western community of states.
Footnotes
1 This text relates to research work carried out by the author over a number of years in the Department of Geography at the University of Heidelberg. This work is currently being continued in the form of a supplementary project on international academic mobility, sponsored by the German Research Society (DFG). Anonymously-given data from the Humboldt Foundation on their sponsorship programmes form an important basis for this work. I am very grateful to the Humboldt Foundation for providing these data.
My special thanks are due to Dr. Ulrike Albrecht and Dr. Barbara Sheldon for their suggestions on structuring and selecting the findings considered relevant for the "Anniversary Edition" and to Dr. Christian Jansen for checking the manuscript. Many thanks also to Dr. Lynda Lich-Knight for translating the text into English and to Janet Bojan for helping with the final editing of the English text. I am also very grateful to Professor Dr. Peter Meusburger for his support and for providing an inspiring working environment in Heidelberg. A more detailed version of the text, which had to be cut in the final editing by the Humboldt Foundation, will appear elsewhere.The same is true of the findings of the DFG project for which roughly 20 percent of all Humboldt Fellows and Humboldt hosts of the last five decades are being surveyed by post and a considerable number of them interviewed personally in order to gain scientific insights into the context, course, and outcome of Humboldt stays. Back to text
2 A comprehensive history of the Humboldt Foundation post 1953 will be published in 2004. About the same time a monograph on the work of the Foundation during the Third Reich will also be finished. Back to text
3 The following is essentially based on assessments of the Humboldt Foundation's data base, the Annual Reports for the years 1953/54 to 2001, and AvH reports written on the occasion of anniversaries. An overview of the relevant literature is, for example, provided by Jöns (2002b). The historical details largely draw on the "Deutschland-Chronik" by Lehmann (1995) and the post-war history by Kielmansegg (2000). A summary of academic developments in Germany after the Second World War is given by Weingart (1998). Back to text
4 Originally the age-limit was 30. Since 1973 it has been raised to 40. A doctorate became a pre-condition for successful application at the beginning of the Seventies. Back to text
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