In line with its 2020 strategy set-up in 2013, the DAAD has restructured its internal organisation. The changes came into effect on 1 January 2015. With the new structure, the DAAD will be in a better position to carry out its two core tasks more professionally and efficiently: first, providing scholarships to the best students, graduates, doctoral candidates and researchers, and second, promoting higher education partnerships and infrastructural programmes.

In the new organizational structure all of the individual scholarship programmes are bundled into a single Scholarships Department. A Projects Department will oversee all partnership and cooperation programmes, infrastructural higher education funding and transnational education programmes. The new Strategy Department is responsible for the ongoing strategic development of the DAAD and for providing expertise in the field of international higher education cooperation. All public relations and marketing activities are combined in the Communications Department. The National Agency for EU Higher Education Cooperation will continue operating as a separate department. All units will be supported by the Central Administration.