As our globalised world becomes increasingly interconnected, the need for scientifically sound solutions to the major challenges of our time has become all the more urgent. To resolve these issues, it is just as essential to intensify collaboration with developing countries and support their efforts to establish viable research systems, as it is to work in close alliance with top-performing partner institutions at leading science locations. In view of the pressing and even existential global challenges we face, e.g. in the areas of climate, nutrition, and health, science must play an even greater role in politics and society. Science communication has become more important than ever in this regard. Internationally networked universities and research organisations are the only institutions capable of promoting this knowledge transfer. New forms of collaboration and dialogue with all relevant stakeholders are needed so that science can adequately assume its global responsibility in a progressively interconnected world. The DAAD intends to strengthen this dialogue in multiple ways: by cultivating a network of scholarship holders, creating forums of exchange in its projects, and promoting research and study of the relevant issues.