Who will be Student of the Year 2024? Apply now!
Who will be "Student of the Year 2024"? This year, for the ninth time, the German Association of University Professors and Lecturers (Deutscher Hochschulverband, DHV) and the German Student Services (DSW) are organising the award for student commitment which they jointly launched eight years ago. The prize money amounts to 5,000 euros and is donated by the "Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft".
With this award, the DHV and DSW wish to honour the student or team of students showing an outstanding commitment that goes beyond their academic achievements, which should be innovative and as unique as possible. There is no restriction on how this is achieved.
The prize will be awarded on 25 March 2024 at the "Gala of German Science" in Berlin. "There are a pleasingly large number of the 2.9 million students who are involved in the state and society, politics and associations on a voluntary basis beyond their studies and are committed to our community," explained DHV President Professor Dr Dr h.c. Lambert T. Koch and DSW President Professor Dr Beate A. Schücking. "The DHV and DSW want to make this commitment more visible with the 'Student of the Year' award by publicising a particularly positive example of student commitment." Both award organisers are calling for candidates to be nominated for the award by 31 December 2023.
The previous award winners
- Medical student Christoph Lüdemann from Witten/Herdecke University, who helped people to help themselves in Rwanda and Sierra Leone through the organisation "L'appel Deutschland", which he also helped to set up (2016),
- the Spinelli Barracks Mannheim construction project supported by 16 architecture students from the University Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU), in which they worked with refugees to design, plan and build a wooden pavilion on a former US military barracks site, which now serves as a meeting place and retreat for the residents of the initial reception centre (2017),
- medical student Philipp Humbsch from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin in Frankfurt/Oder. He is the originator and driving force behind the "Anyone can be a hero" initiative, which has been teaching first aid to primary school pupils in structurally weak areas of Brandenburg free of charge since 2016, while at the same time raising their awareness for further volunteer work in voluntary civil protection organisations (2018),
- medical student Wiebke Gehm from the University of Rostock, leading member of the student initiative "TNA - Tommy nicht allein", in which students have been caring for patients in need at Rostock Children's Hospital in their free time since 2015 (2019),
- the medical student Sagithjan Surendra from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, who is the founder and driving force behind the "Aelius Förderwerk", which has been supporting children and young people from non-academic homes, often with a migrant background, on their educational path through a broad range of non-material support programmes since 2017 (2020)
- the "TechAcademy", a group of 20 students from Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, which promotes the digital skills of its fellow students from all subject areas and disciplines with free seminars (2021),
- 15 students from the Catholic University of Applied Sciences North Rhine-Westphalia (katho) from the Faculty of Social Sciences in Aachen, who selflessly supported many of those affected by the large flood in Stolberg (2022),
- seven students from different disciplines from Hanover, Berlin and Hamburg for founding and showing outstanding commitment to the group "Hanover Helps e.V". Immediately after the start of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, the student group launched aid deliveries, collected donations, set up children's play areas in the reception halls at the Hanover Exhibition Centre and distributed hundreds of packed school bags to pupils in need in the Hanover region.
