This network, which also includes the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and many other organisations, helps to foster understanding of Germany, facilitate academic cooperation and, last but not least, represent German interests. The coalition agreement states: “Cultural relations and education policy is an integral part of German foreign policy, an important part of Germany’s soft power, and therefore a strategic instrument in the global competition for prestige, influence, narratives, ideas and values.”

Germany is facing major international upheavals: Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine has brought war back to Europe. Growing geopolitical rivalries among the major powers are placing massive pressure on the rules-based international order. We must hold our own in the systemic competition between liberal democracies and an increasing number of autocracies. In view of these and other challenges, Germany is significantly strengthening its military defence capabilities. At the same time, we are resolutely standing up for our interests and values in the international arena and actively seeking new global partners.

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Against this backdrop, the networks and instruments of our cultural relations and education policy have an impact beyond the immediate impression they make on individual students, researchers or visitors to exhibitions. They operate within the framework of the triad of security, freedom and prosperity in Germany – the core objectives of German foreign policy. For example, the freedom of art and culture, of science and research, which is comprehensively protected and guaranteed in Germany, is central to the deployment of our intermediaries, also in difficult locations. German schools abroad, academic organisations and branches of the Goethe-Institut are tasked with safeguarding these freedoms. At the same time, these freedoms are a key factor in Germany’s appeal, which our intermediaries abroad promote.

In addition to the work done by the intermediaries in the sphere of science and cultural diplomacy, public diplomacy is also part and parcel of cultural relations and education policy. Its purpose is to inform people in Indonesia, Nigeria or Mexico about Germany – including, and indeed especially, via social media. Each of the more than 220 German missions abroad belongs to the public diplomacy network and, in the virtual mire of ever more artificial and deliberately falsified information, their mission is to spotlight our strengths and what Germany stands for. Cultural relations and education policy thus also contributes to Germany’s security in the age of bots, disinformation and hybrid attacks.