Student Migration and Development: A Case Study of a German Scholarship Program

How do international students and alumni contribute to development in their countries of origin? Is the development effect greatest when students return to their countries of origin directly after completing their studies and become involved locally there, or can they also support the development of their country of origin if they remain abroad after their studies and contribute their knowledge and capital to the development process of their country of origin via transnational networks? Specifically, this question is examined in this publication using the example of the scholarship and alumni work of the Catholic Academic Alien Service (KAAD) in five countries of different developing regions: Georgia, Ghana, Indonesia, Colombia and Palestine.

Dr. Sascha Krannich is a research associate at the Institute for the History of Medicine at the Justus Liebig University of Giessen with a focus on migration, human rights and global health. He is also a member of the Research Group on Migration and Human Rights (FGMM) at the Justus Liebig University of Giessen.

Dr. Uwe Hunger is Professor of Political Science with a focus on migration at the University of Applied Sciences Fulda, Private Lecturer at the Institute for Political Science at the Westphalian Wilhelms University Münster, Spokesperson of the Migration Policy Working Group in the German Political Science Association (DVPW) and Fellow at the Research College of the University of Siegen as well as at the Center for Comparative Migration Studies at the University of California San Diego