Two former recipients of funding from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) have been awarded the 2026 Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize by the German Research Foundation (DFG) – the most prestigious award for young researchers in Germany. The DFG is honouring mathematician Dominik Schmid from the University of Augsburg and political scientist Julia Schulte-Cloos from the University of Marburg, alongside eight other researchers. 

“We warmly congratulate our alumna and alumnus on receiving Germany’s most important research prize for early-career researchers. The award to Julia Schulte-Cloos and Dominik Schmid demonstrates how formative international experience can be for academic careers. The DAAD supports researchers early on in building international networks and gaining new perspectives – with a lasting impact on their future careers and on academic excellence in Germany,” said DAAD President Prof. Dr Joybrato Mukherjee.

Assistant Professor Dr Dominik Schmid receives the prize for his research in probability theory, particularly on so-called mixed times and cutoff phenomena, for example in road traffic. His research opens up new methodological approaches for understanding complex dynamic systems and has the potential to become a widely applicable standard tool in the future. Schmid received a postdoctoral grant from the DAAD to carry out research in the USA from 2021 to 2023.

Assistant Professor Dr Julia Schulte-Cloos is being honoured for her research into the causes of political dissatisfaction and the dynamics of populist and far-right parties in Europe. Using innovative data-driven approaches, she investigates, among other things, the consequences of political dissatisfaction and the rise of anti-democratic actors and ‘ ’ movements. From 2015 to 2018, Schulte-Cloos was funded by the DAAD at the European University Institute in Florence, based at the University of Oxford.

The DFG’s Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize, worth 200,000 euros each, is awarded to outstanding researchers who have developed an independent academic profile at an early stage. The award ceremony for the ten laureates will take place on 11 June 2026 in Berlin.

By supporting students, doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers, the DAAD makes an important contribution to the internationalisation of science and to the development of the next generation of top researchers.