Working with our alumni is an integral part of our networking efforts. The alumni network, which has grown since 1992, includes over 4,900 alumni from 192 countries. Several hundred of them are currently serving at their countries' representations in Germany, some of them as ambassadors. They all remain important contacts for us both domestically and internationally. In line with a network-oriented foreign policy, we aim to maintain targeted contact with our alumni even after the completion of the training programmes. To this end, we have developed tools that enable us to foster this global network and deepen connections within the existing alumni network: regional meetings abroad, re-invitation programmes and individual events in Germany, online seminars, German as a foreign language offerings, and the provision of scholarships for our partners' programmes.

Conversely, we are equally enthusiastic about opening our alumni offerings to alumni from our partners' networks, thereby bringing together actors from various sectors. We work particularly closely with the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa), the German Bundestag, and the International Alumni Center of the Robert Bosch Stiftung.

Another task of the project is to integrate more Germans into the international network: colleagues from the Federal Foreign Office and its missions abroad, as well as participants and alumni of the Federal Foreign Office’s “kulturweit” volunteer service or the Mercator Fellowship on International Affairs, and former program staff, for example.