Our goal: To discover and promote young talents

Discovering and promoting talents – to us, this implies preparing young people from Germany and abroad for assuming responsibility in politics and the economy, in science and the media, in culture and in civil organisations. In our philosophy, promoting gifted and motivated students represents an investment in a country's future, and it is with this purpose in mind that we focus on promoting gifted young scientists.

What we are looking for is motivation as well as political or social commitment.

Ever since 1965, training future leaders and elite performers showing social or political commitment has been one of the most important tasks of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

Our support is not predicated on a candidate's ethnic or familial background or gender. We judge the qualification of scholars by their performance both before they submit their application as well as during the scholarship term afterwards. We expect their performance to indicate that the promotion results will be clearly above average.

However, good marks are not enough by themselves. We expect scholars to be able to look at matters from different angles, and we expect them to be tolerant, receptive, creative, and dialogue-oriented.

The Konrad Adenauer Foundation intends this value-based promotion of performance and personal qualifications to contribute towards the development of intellectual resources as well as towards peace, freedom, and international understanding.

Eligibility criteria

• Are you a Chinese national currently engaged in postgraduate studies who would like to acquire a PhD degree in science or the arts at one of Germany's universities?

• Has your performance at secondary school and at college been above average?

• Are you interested in and/or committed to political and/or social concerns?

• Having received a grant from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, would you be prepared to occupy positions of responsibility in politics, the economy, the society, science, administration, publishing, or culture on the national and international plane?

If your answer to these questions is yes, you may attend the screening meeting that will be organised by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Beijing. The next meeting will be held in 2013. For more detailed information, please contact our Beijing Project Office at the following address:

Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V.

Beijing Project Office

Office 813, Beijing Lufthansa Center

No. 50, Liangmaqiao Road

Chaoyang District, Beijing 100016

E-Mail: Beijing@kas.de

Phone: 0086 – 10-6462 2207/08

Fax: 0086 – 10-6462-2209

Further information is also available on the website of the Chinese Scholarship Council.

Who can apply?

To apply for a scholarship, postgraduate students need to document their qualification for and/or enrolment in a promotion course of studies in science or the arts at one of Germany's universities. Applications from candidates who have not yet completed their preliminary examinations, or whose studies abroad do not qualify them for graduate studies in this country, will not be considered.

Applicants must furnish documentary evidence of having completed a course of study and acquired a university degree enabling them to take up a profession. At the same time, they must furnish evidence of German language skills at the level of the German certificate issued by the Goethe Institute, and they must be prepared to return to their respective home country after having completed their study project in Germany.

Who cannot apply?

Foreign nationals who

• have reached the age of 30 at the time of submitting their application,

• intend to study at technical colleges located in Germany or at universities abroad,

• intend to study music or the arts without an entrance examination certificate at a German college, or

• intend to study medicine or dentistry

will not be eligible.

Applicants who have completed courses in medicine or dentistry in China will not be eligible for participation in the screening process.

Where and how should you apply?

For downloading our guidelines and preliminary questionnaires, please go to >>.

Please send your completed questionnaire to the address of our Beijing Project Office (see above).

We keep in touch with our 'old boys and girls'

We believe that keeping in touch with our former scholars is very important, and we actively maintain these contacts. In China alone, our former scholars include more than 160 people, most of whom have completed their graduate or postgraduate studies with top marks and have a high degree of scientific, political, and social competence.