Total international academic staff and international professors, by key countries of origin, since 2013

International academic personnel at German universities in 2022 were composed of around 63,100 academic and artistic staff of foreign nationalities. Since 2017, the number of international staff has increased by 33%.
For international professors, it appears to be a more gradual process. In 2022, around 3,900 professors of foreign nationality were appointed at German universities, equating to a rise of 22% since 2017.
The key countries of origin for international academic staff at German universities are India, Italy, China, Austria, Iran, Russia, the US, Spain, France and Turkey. While Italy, Austria, Russia and France have seen an increase of between 21% and 31% in the number of academic staff since 2017, this rate is below average for the US (+7%) and Spain (+12%). Moreover, India (+95%), Turkey (+81%), Iran (+59%) and China (+53%) report particularly positive developments.
In terms of international professors, Austria is by far the most important country of origin, followed by Italy, Switzerland and the US. While the number of Austrian professors has climbed by 20% since 2017, the Swiss figure has only gone up by 7%. The largest increases can be observed for Spain (+37%), Russia (+33%) and Italy (+31%). By contrast, the numbers of professors from the United Kingdom have dwindled during the same period (–7%).