A survey of the ZEF alumni careers

ZEF’s International Doctoral Studies Program (IDSP) has become internationally renowned because of its uniqueness in Germany, its size (150 PhD students) and interdisciplinarity. The overall goals of IDSP are to train future decision makers from developing countries, and German and European scientists for an international career.

In June 2006, 130 PhD students had graduated in the International Studies Program (IDSP) at ZEF since its interception in 1999. A survey on their career progression showed that 60% of the graduates from developing and transition countries returned to their home countries to take up positions in the fields of research, teaching, administration and governments. 15% found jobs in international organisations like the World Bank, CGIAR- centers or the United Nations Organisations. 11% found post-doc positios in Germany. Only a few, recently graduated ones (2%) were still searching for a job, or had to leave the program because of personal reasons or insufficient performance (7%). From 3% we had no information.

The monitoring of the careers of former German participants also confirms the success of the IDSP concept: immediately after completing their theses, most of them took up positions in national or international organisations in development related context, in German ministries or in developing countries.

The current main sponsors of the IDSP are the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) via the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), the Ministerium für Innovation, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen (MIWFT), Robert Bosch Foundation, German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), and many other donors.