Indicator 17.2 Number of students and researchers from developing countries and least developed countries per year

Text from the Indicator Report 2022 

The data basis of the indicator is the statistics of students and the statistics of higher education staff conducted by the Federal Statistical Office. Both are complete surveys based on the administrative data of the institutions of higher education. The indicator includes the students in the winter semester of each year. However, the researchers are covered on the reference date of 1st of December. Researchers in this context are defined as academic personnel at German institutions of higher education in primary and secondary employment (excluding student assistants). Doctoral candidates who are enrolled as students at an institution of higher education and who are also working as member of the academic personnel may be counted twice by the indicator.

The total number of all students and researchers from developing and emerging countries at German institutions of higher education was about 316,000 in 2021. With 91.9 %, students by far accounted for the largest share of the indicator value.

In the winter semester of 2021/22, 290,453 students from developing and emerging countries were enrolled in German institutions of higher education. This corresponds to 9.9 % of all enrollees. The number of students from developing and emerging countries has increased steadily since 2005/06 (134,462 students) – the only decline recorded was during winter semester of 2007/08. The increase in the winter semester of 2021/22 was around 5.6 % compared to the previous year (about 275,000 students in the winter semester of 2020/21). In the winter semester of 2021/22, a total of 17,113 students came from LDCs, 13.7 % more than in the previous year.

Of the students from developing and emerging countries, 43,629 came from China, 36,575 from Turkey and 34,134 from India. In total, 41.6 % of them were female. Whereas the European (54.2 %) and American (50.4 %) developing and emerging countries send roughly equal numbers of women and men to study in Germany, less than a third of students from African developing and emerging countries are women (32.8 %). The proportion of women among students from LDCs (worldwide) was even lower (28.4 %).

In 2021, 26,000 researchers from developing and emerging countries were part of the academic personnel at German institutions of higher education. They accounted for 6.0 % of all academic staff at German institutions of higher education. The proportion of people from developing and emerging countries was thus markedly smaller among researchers than among students. Their numbers increased by 10.6 % compared to the previous year and have more than quadrupled since 2005. A total of 924 researchers came from LDCs in 2021 (0.2 % of all academic staff). The equivalent figure for the previous year was 838, so there was a slight reduction.

It should be considered, that a change of countries included into either the group of LDCs or developing and emerging countries might also result in changes of the aforementioned values. Thus, it is difficult to compare these values with previous years.

The target of raising the number of students and researchers from developing and emerging countries by 10 % compared to the 215,000 recorded for 2015 was already achieved in 2017. From there, the intended steady increase is also reached in subsequent years.

The synoptic table provides information about the evaluation of the indicator in previous years. It shows if the weather symbol assigned to an indicator was rather stable or volatile in the past years. (Evaluation of the Indicator Report 2022 )

Indicator	17.2 Number of students and researchers from developing countries and least developed countries per year
Target	Increase the number by 10 % from 2015 to 2020, then stabilised
Year	2018	2019	2020	2021
Evaluation