Who is coming to Germany? The data issue | Zuwanderung, Flucht und Asyl: Aktuelle Themen | bpb.de

Germany is attractive to foreign researchers and was chosen as one of the top destinations for scientists taking part in the European Marie Curie Fellowship programme . The Figure shows the ten quantitatively most important countries of origin for foreign researchers in Germany. However, these figures should be viewed with caution as they include only those researchers/academics who were individually funded by a German funding organisation. Those who were employed through large grants, who were employed directly by the university, or who were funded by organisations abroad will not necessarily be represented .

While these figures provide some insight into the make-up of the population of foreign researchers, they can do no more than give a general impression. The lack of availability of reliable and complete data on foreign scientists in Germany is the main problem in trying to quantify flows. For example, the nationality of university staff is not recorded in the national sta- tistics, and foreign early stage researchers not directly funded through individual grants will not be captured in the funding organisations' figures. It is therefore virtually impossible to get an accurate impression of the number of foreign scientists, researchers and academics in Germany at any one time. Without a significant increase in financial and human resources it is unlikely that this gap in the data can be filled.