The Reichstag building in Berlin with the German flag flying above the glass dome at dusk.

Germany Applications for the 2027/28 intake ran from 1 June to 31 July 2026. DAAD reopens the call around June each year for study starting the following autumn

DAAD Helmut-Schmidt-Programme (Public Policy & Good Governance)

The Helmut-Schmidt-Programme is the German Foreign Office's answer to Chevening: a fully funded Master's for people who intend to work on governance, public administration and development in their own country rather than emigrate. It is administered by DAAD and named after the former Chancellor. Funding is genuinely complete — a monthly scholarship of €992, currently about LKR 342,000, plus tuition, health insurance, a travel allowance, a study and research subsidy, and rent or family allowances where they apply. Awardees also get up to six months of German language training in Germany before the degree starts, paid for. Sri Lanka sits inside the eligible group of developing and emerging countries, in the South Asia cohort alongside India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. The catch that filters most applicants out is not nationality but course choice: you cannot pick any German Master's. The programme funds a fixed set of about seven programmes at institutions including the University of Passau (Development Studies; Governance and Public Policy), the University of Duisburg-Essen (Development and Governance), the Erfurt School of Public Policy, the University of Magdeburg (Peace and Conflict Studies), Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg (Social Protection) and Hochschule Osnabrück (Management in Nonprofit Organisations). All are taught in English. If your field is engineering, computing or business, this is not your scheme — DAAD's EPOS and Study Scholarship programmes are. If you work in the Sri Lankan public sector, a ministry, a provincial council, an NGO or a policy think tank, it is one of the strongest funded routes to Europe available to you.

DAAD — German Academic Exchange Service

Government-funded

emoji_events Award Overview

payments

Monthly Stipend

€992 (LKR ~342,000)

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Language Training

Up to 6 months of paid German course in Germany

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Also Covered

Tuition, health insurance, travel allowance, study subsidy

fact_check Eligibility Criteria

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Sri Lanka Is Eligible

The programme is open to nationals of developing and emerging countries, and Sri Lanka falls inside the South Asia group DAAD names for this scheme. Confirm your country appears on the country list published with the current call — DAAD reissues it each cycle and does occasionally change it.

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A First Degree, Usually With Relevant Experience

You need a completed bachelor's degree, normally with above-average results. The degree should normally have been finished within the last six years. Practical experience in public administration, policy, civil society or development work is strongly weighted, even where it is not a hard requirement.

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Only the Seven Approved Master's Courses

Applications must be to one of the approved PPGG Master's programmes. Applying to a German university outside that list does not qualify, however good the university. You may normally name more than one of the approved courses in order of preference.

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English-Taught, But German Is Funded

The degrees are taught in English, so an IELTS or TOEFL result is what you need academically. No prior German is required — DAAD funds a language course of up to six months before the degree so you can function outside the classroom.

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You Are Expected to Go Home

This is a development scholarship funded by the Federal Foreign Office. The selection panel is explicitly looking for people who will return and work on democracy, governance and social justice in their own country. An application that reads as a migration plan will not succeed.

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Family Allowances Are Possible

Rent subsidies and allowances for an accompanying spouse or children may be paid where the conditions are met — unusual generosity among Master's scholarships, and worth checking if you are a mid-career applicant with dependants.

account_tree Application Process

Choose from the approved course list

Read DAAD's 'Information about the Master's Courses' document for the cycle and shortlist the programmes that actually match your work. Passau and Duisburg-Essen suit generalist policy backgrounds; Magdeburg suits conflict and peacebuilding; Bonn-Rhein-Sieg suits social protection and welfare policy.

Apply to the university and to DAAD

Each participating university runs its own admission application, and the PPGG scholarship application goes through the DAAD portal. Deadlines are set by DAAD — for the 2027/28 round the window was 1 June to 31 July 2026.

Build the motivation letter around a Sri Lankan problem

The strongest applications name a concrete governance problem in Sri Lanka — public procurement, local government finance, post-conflict reconciliation, climate adaptation policy, health system administration — and explain what the specific German course teaches that you cannot learn here.

Assemble references and proof of experience

Academic transcripts, a CV, letters of reference and evidence of relevant professional or voluntary work are required. Letters from a ministry, a provincial authority or a recognised NGO carry real weight.

Selection and language course

Shortlisting is done jointly by the universities and DAAD, with results usually in the first half of the following year. Successful candidates typically arrive in Germany for the funded German course before the semester begins.

Apply for the German national visa in Colombo

Sri Lankan awardees apply for a national (type D) student visa at the German Embassy in Colombo. The DAAD award letter substitutes for the blocked account that self-funded students must open, which removes the single hardest financial hurdle in the German visa process.

Why the Helmut-Schmidt-Programme?

Germany charges little or no tuition at public universities, so the value of a German scholarship is usually in the living costs — and this one covers them fully rather than partially. For Sri Lankan applicants the programme has two further advantages over the more famous UK awards: the degrees run one to two years rather than a compressed twelve months, and the German post-study job-seeker visa lets graduates test the European labour market legally before deciding whether to return, even though returning is the programme's expectation. DAAD is Germany's national academic exchange agency and one of the largest scholarship funders in the world, so its processes are predictable and its award letters are recognised by every German consulate.