Culture Exchange – Culture Promotion – Education Promotion

The Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations devises and organises exhibitions of German contemporary art which are shown in foreign museums and galleries. The range of exhibitions is focussing the 20th and 21st centuries. It comprehends the areas

Fine Arts,

Photography / Film,

Architecture and

Design.

The ifa Galleries in Stuttgart and Berlin organise exhibitions of contemporary art, architecture and design from all over the world; regional focus is currently on Asia as well as the Middle East. The programme aims to promote intercultural dialogue within Germany – a lively, contemporary, genuine exchange between cultures.

In line with the funding programme Artists' Contacts the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations supports working visits in and travel to Germany for contemporary artists from developing countries and countries in transition. German artists are also to be offered travel subsidies enabling them to make contacts in developing countries and countries in transition.

The Alexander Rave Foundation in the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations aims to promote further education and research in the fields of science, the arts and culture.

The Rave Scholarships are awarded twice a year to curators, restorers, museum technicians and culture managers from countries in transition and developing countries allowing a training, a placement or a voluntary cooperation at a German non-commercial institution.

With the Rave Research Award an outstanding thesis or dissertation is honoured providing an incentive for further research in this field.

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation makes a contribution to Culture Exchange and Education Promotion with the allocation of sponsor programmes for scientists from abroad.

The Georg Forster Research Fellowship is addressed to postdoctoral researchers and experienced researchers of all disciplines from developing and threshold countries. The research proposal must address issues of significant relevance to the further development of their country of origin and, in this context, promise to facilitate the transfer knowledge and methods to developing and threshold countries. Annually up to 60 Georg Forster Research Fellowships are awarded.

The Reimar Lüst Award is granted to humanities scholars and social scientists from abroad who, as multipliers in and through the field of academic studies, have made an exceptional contribution to the enduring promotion of bilateral relations between Germany and their own countries. Annually two Reimar Lüst Awards are confered.

The German Academic Exchange Service promotes musicians and artists with special funding programmes.

The Berlin Artists-in-Residence Programme is addressed to students in the fields of visual arts, literature, music, film and dance/performance and aims to intensify the exchange of artistic experiences and the preoccupation with current cultural issues of other countries.

The Artists-in-Residence Worpswede see themselves as a place of international encounter. They aim to promote professional artists in the fields of the fine and visual arts and sound art. They also support the projects of the funded artists and present these to the public.

The Foundation Artists’ Village Schöppingen promotes authors and artists and awards grants in the field New Media and Composition.

The Academy Schloss Solitude offers young artists with an international scholarship programme in the fields of fine/visual arts and performing arts, architecture, music, literature, design, film/video, and theatre.

The Hertie Scholarship Programme is intended for Central and Eastern European members of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra that promotes young musicians by giving highly-talented young musicians the opportunity to gain valuable orchestra experience outside their home countries.

The Artists’ Residence Schloss Balmoral offers scholarships to international visual artists in the disciplines of painting, sculpture, installation, drawing, graphic arts, design, photography, video as well as new media and landscape art/design.

The Artists’ House Luke in Ahrenshoop sees itself as a place for artistic work and for international meeting and encounter. The programme also aims to facilitate interesting forms of collaboration between the individual art forms. The programme's international context focuses on the Baltic littoral states.

The DAAD Higher Education Cooperation Programmes for developing countries offers stipends for experts and management in the areas administration, industry, and education as well as cooperation with institutions of higher education to expand the spectrum of teaching and research.

With the programme Postgraduate Training scholarships to participants from developing countries for the Postgraduate Courses with Relevance to Developing Countries are provided.

Physicians from developing countries are well prepared within the framework of the Medical Programme for their return and work in their home country.

The Sur-place/Third Country Programme advances the education of young university teachers from developing countries, particularly Africa. Besides it awards country-related scholarships for young academics and researchers from Argentina, Chile and Mexico, India, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam and Sudan.

The Alumni Special Projects combine an education event at a German university with a visit to a subject-related fair.

With the programme German-Arab/Iranian Higher Education Dialogue the DAAD supports higher education partnership projects focusing the cultural dialogue with the Islamic world. Fundable are dialogue-oriented partnership projects between German institutions of higher education and its partners in Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa and Iran in all disciplines, from the arts, urban planning, to civil engineering and medicine.

German Palestinian Orchestra Cooperation - musical project of the university of Bonn with the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music in Palestine,

Selfperception and Perception of the Other in Politics, History and Culture - humanistic academic dialogue of the universities Erlangen and Damascus,

German and Arabic Translators in Action - project for the support of the linguistic and cultural exchange between the university of Leipzig, the Sana'a University in Yemen, the Ain Shams University in Cairo, the Ecole Supérieure Roi Fahd de Traduction in Tangier and the German-Jordanian University,

Hiwar Fanni-Transart - artistic dialogue project of the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig with the Helwan University in Cairo, the Damascus University, the Lebanese University and the Balqa University in Jordan.

The German Development Service supports local civil organisations and municipal structures by providing specialist advice, if required by financial support. By promotion of local skilled staff it fosters capacity building for a self-determined development. Currently it works in 47 partner countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America and is in charge of different projects in the field culture promotion and education promotion.

In West and Central Africa for example:

School Building Competition in Chad discharges potentials of the rural population.

In Eastern and Southern Africa for example:

Vocational Education and Training in Botswana.

In Asia for example:

Art builds bridges between young and old in Cambodia.

In the Middle East and Central Asia for example:

Improved Education for Teachers in Afghanistan,

Basic and Secondary Education in Yemen,

Sustainable Urban Development in Damascus and Aleppo/Syrien.

In Latin America and the Caribbean for example:

Interculturality as a Cross-Sectoral Theme in Bolivia.

The German Organisation for Technical Cooperation promotes decentralised public and private structures and assists the population in securing a livelihood. In a series of regional Round Tables, it is devoting itself in cooperation with the Goethe Institute to the question of the influence cultural factors bear on development, how development cooperation can itself influence the culture of partner countries, and whether or not a cultural or systemic change that is instigated from outside is even desirable in the first place.

Once a year it has organised a major annual exhibition of contemporary art, including paintings, drawings, prints, photography and sculpture. All the works on display are by artists living in countries where GTZ operates.

In the region Maghreb and Middle East the German Organisation for Technical Cooperation is activ in several countries, there, for example, it supervises the following projects:

Poetry and modern communication in Mauretanien.

In the region Europe, Caucasus and Central Asie the German Organisation for Technical Cooperation is activ in several countries, there, for example, it supervises the following projects:

Mainstreaming human rights in Afghanistan,

Looking for clues to a cultural home in Russia.

In the region Latin America and Caribbean the German Organisation for Technical Cooperation is activ in several countries, there, for example, it supervises the following projects:

Indigenous Intercultural University in Latin America,

Educational reform – teacher training in intercultural bilingual education and intercultural bilingual education in five Andes nations.

With its Culture and Development initiative, the Goethe Institute employs specific consulting and training programmes to promote institutions and stakeholders from culture, the media and society, in particular in countries involved in development cooperation. The programmes aim to provide professional qualifications, to advise and support the formation of regional networks and create cultural and social platforms. Under the heading of The Arts it offers different projects in the field of Culture Exchange and Culture Promotion.

In the subject Visual Arts there are the following choices for example:

The Art of Independence invites intellectuals and artists from Latin America and Germany to dialogue.

Turbulent World – Telling Time provides contemporary photography and video works from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Germany.

The photo workshop Urban Changes presents images of India through the lenses of young photographers from the South Asia region.

In the subject Film there are the following choices for example:

Pan-African short film competition.

The Film Project Afghanistan deals with everyday routines of young people in Afghanistan and Germany.

Tropica a dance about the perpetual circle of growth and decay from Sri Lanka.

In the subject Literature there are the following choices for example:

The Support Programme Translations of German Books into Foreign Language provides foreign publishers with the publication of German literature.

The Translators-in-Residence Programme awards grants to professional translators from abroad who wish to work on a translation of German-language literature in Germany.

The project Competence Centre Cultural Manager arranges a contact with the cultural scene in Germany for people from East Europe and Central Asia working in the cultural field. 

 Bee Maja in the Orient promotes the translation of German child books and youth books in Arabic.

The German-Lebanese Literature Workshop is addressed to children in Lebanon.

 German Books in Turkish Translation.

In the subject Music there are the following choices for example:

Ensemble Nuevo is a music project with young Latin-American musicians from Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and Chile.

Li-lak presents artists from Germany and the Arabian world.

With Celebration of Burger Highlife Ghanaian musicians creating a crossover mixture of highlife, disco and funk music in Germany.

In the subject Theater there are the following choices for example:

The School Theatre Festival St. Petersburg is the only regional festival in Russia performed in German.

The InWEnt - Capacity Building International - communicates interdisciplinary management techniques and intercultural know-how in developing and transition countries.

With the choice Social Development it fosters the sustainable development of the health care and educational systems of developing and transition countries.

Capacity Building for institutions of teacher education in Guatemala, Honduras and Peru.

With the choice Economy and Employment it supports foreign trade, the expansion of infrastructures and vocational training via capacity building.

Vocational training in China and Vietnam,

Professional training strengthens the Uzbek economy,

EU Tacis Reform of the Ukrainian vocational education system.