Talent Promotion Program

The Foundation for Freedom advocates the principles of freedom, responsibility, and a market economy, the rule of law, tolerance, and human rights. Our role is to offer political education as our contribution to uphold a free and democratic society. The goal of our work is to enthuse young men and women about the ideals of freedom and win them over as ambassadors who promote such ideals here and abroad.

Talent Promotion

The Talent Promotion program of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom has been the liberal grantor of scholarships in Germany since 1973. We identify and empower talented university students to assume responsibility in politics, economy, science and the society and thereby use their own free spirits.

Whom do we support?

You fit the right profile, if you are a top-notch student at a college or university, have the courage to be a free thinker, and are involved socially. Our scholarships are for German and foreign university students and doctoral candidates studying in any field at a college or university.

• Capabilities and talent: We seek good to very good performance in specialty areas as well as multidisciplinary interests.
• Personality: The crucial facets that count are dedication, motivation, decisiveness, readiness to take on responsibility, and getting involved in promoting a free society.
• Liberal or social commitment: This means involvement in a student council, university committee, liberal political party, youth organization, ecclesiastic or social institution, human rights organization, cultural activities, environment protection, sports, within your family, or in a neighborhood help group.

We presently support over 850 university students and doctoral candidates from Germany and abroad.

Scholarships and additional programs

We award university scholarships to students studying for a diploma, a bachelor’s or master’s degree, or for the state examination at German colleges, universities of applied sciences, or universities.

Germans and foreign students (EU) can apply for a scholarship for their first semester.

Foreign students (none EU) can apply for a scholarship for their Mastern as well as PhD.

Our postgraduate scholarships are for German and foreign doctoral candidates.

Additional promotion program

From 2017 we offer special grants in honor of Westerwelle, Lambsdorff and Genscher.

Please find all information about additional promotion programs here.

Application and Selection

Please note: German language skills on a B2-level is obligatory for our scholarships. Therefore the application has to be submitted in German.

All applications must be submitted online. Please find the Link for Online applications HERE.

1. Fill out the application form and submit this with your CV and two references; doctoral candidates should include a précis of their planned research. For information and forms, visit stipendium.freiheit.org. Please note that we are converting to online applications, step-by-step.

2. We will preselect candidates based on the selection criteria.

3. If you are successful, we will invite you for a selection interview. This takes place with our independent selection committee.

4. We will notify you of acceptance or rejection within two weeks in writing, whereby you shall have no right of acceptance for a scholarship.

Deadlines

April 30th and October 31st each year.