The first three centres were founded in 1990 as Centers of Excellence in the USA at the Universities of Berkeley, Harvard and Georgetown on the initiative of the Federal Government at the time in order to intensify German-American relations, especially scientific cooperation. In the mid-1990s, the first centre in Europe was inaugurated in the UK at the University of Birmingham. At the end of the 1990s, several centres followed in the East and Midwest of the USA as well as in Canada. The step to another continent was taken in 2000 with the opening of the centre at the University of Tokyo. In 2001, CIERA in France, which coordinates a nationwide network, and the Duitsland Instituut Amsterdam were added. A year later, the Willy Brandt Centre in Wrocław (Breslau) followed, which prevailed in a nationwide tender. In Russia, at St. Petersburg State University, and in China, at Peking University, already established bilateral university cooperation in individual subjects was further expanded into interdisciplinary centres with German project partners. Within the following years, two centres were established in Israel, at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the University of Haifa. In addition, a centre was initiated at Chung Ang University in Seoul. Since 2016, the network has been complemented by a dedicated research centre, the Research Hub for German Studies at the University of Cambridge. The most recent centre, opened in 2017, is located in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and is a cooperation project between the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) and the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS). In addition to DAAD funding, the central element of the programme is the host universities' own commitment, which is reflected in the matching-fundsprinciple, among other things.
In the Anglo-Saxon region (Canada, USA, Great Britain and Ireland), in view of the comparatively strong presence of interdisciplinary German and European Studies and a high potential of qualified applicants, a project-based funding programme has also been used for some years as a successor model to comprehensive centre funding. "Promoting German (and European) Studies" and also the "German Studies Professors", together with the Centre Programme within the framework of the Federal Republic of Germany's foreign cultural and educational policy and foreign science policy, represent one of the cornerstones in the promotion of interdisciplinary German- and European-related research and teaching abroad.
