DAAD Prize Winners at the University of Potsdam
The DAAD prize
To highlight the benefits that international students bring to our universities and society, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) has been awarding the DAAD Prize for outstanding achievements of international students since 1996. Every year, almost 200 German universities award this prize to their best foreign students. The DAAD prize honours students who have produced outstanding academic achievements and who have demonstrated public and intercultural commitment.
Information on the nomination of DAAD award winners at the University of Potsdam
DAAD Prize 2023
This year's DAAD Prize for outstanding achievements of international students goes to Tomás Agustín Vellani. The doctoral student was awarded the prize for his outstanding achievements and his academic as well as civil society commitment.
Mr. Vellani completed his Master's degree in National and International Administration and Policy at the University of Potsdam in 2020. Since 2021, he has worked as a research assistant at the Chair of Politics, Administration and Organisation and started his PhD on The governance of digitalization in small medium-sized municipalities. He has also been a Senior Lecturer at Science Po Paris in 2021 - 2022.
Mr. Vellani is characterised by exemplary expertise in administrative science and his competences in comparative research and research communication. In doing so, he moves just as confidently as a scientific expert in exchanges with partners as he does as a comprehensible communicator of complex issues to students.
He brings these qualities to bear in an outstanding way in his commitment as a bridge builder between Germany and his home country Argentina. He uses his extensive network contacts to bring together a wide range of stakeholders and to promote his favourite topics of climate protection and digitalisation at the local level of metropolises. Evidence of this is the participation of a research team in the C40 climate summit in Buenos Aires as well as the organisation of several best practice workshops with scientists, students, politicians and city administrations. These formats help to raise awareness of climate protection and promote exchange between the two countries. With all these facets of his work, Mr Vellani also contributes as an active member of the network of Argentinean scientists in Germany.
