In May 2006, the DAAD, the Goethe Institute and the Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) opened a joint office in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates. The Federal Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier attended the opening ceremony. The establishment of this office is a reaction to the demand for information on European and German higher education issues in the region. The office staff will support the European-Islamic dialogue by means of different actions and events.

The DAAD, acting on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, and the National Cancer Institute of France (INCa) announced a new Joint Programme on Cancer. Under this programme, the DAAD and INCa aim to jointly fund the training of future generations of cancer researchers and so to foster long-term relationships between cancer researchers in France and Germany. This joint transnational programme will be flexible enough in its design to meet a variety of research priorities and needs of common interest. The programme provides up to 50,000 Euro of support for scientific exchange between a French and a German research team involved in a defined collaborative research project in the field of cancer.