Scholarship 2025
The Dachstein Dialoge Scholarship Program (DDSP) is aimed at creating a transformative and empowering experience for young historians who live in countries or regions that are or were recently subject to violent conflicts and wars.
"Experience History" – A Unique Educational Program at the Dachstein
During a six-week residential course at the Dachstein, participating students will engage in university-level tuition focusing on the history of conflict and peacebuilding, as well as didactic approaches and philosophical reflection. This program is designed to help future history teachers and others communicating about history build on the knowledge and experiences they gain during the DSP in their future life and work. The course will also involve engaging with their own stories through writing, historical analysis, philosophical debate, and the performance of a play based on these stories.
Why are we doing this?
The DDSP aims to create an intellectual, professional, and personal experience that will empower participants to develop as teachers and communicators of a history that is non-partisan and fact-based. It encourages learning from the best teachers in history, philosophy, sociology, and education.
The goal is not indoctrination or ideological teaching, but rather an approach grounded in human rights, equality, respect, and fact-based argumentation. It seeks, on the contrary, to unlock history as a source of insight into the structures and strategies at play in history and politics, prompting participants to ask new questions during and after their residency.
Didactic resources and methods will be provided to future teachers to create open teaching environments that strengthen basic human rights and mutual respect through their work and commitment to educating the next generation. To support this, the social aspects of the residential course—such as interactions with local families and other scholars from distant places—are as important as the academic or artistic dimensions of the project. These aspects may also be sustained through an online alumni community.
The DDSP is funded partly by the Avina Foundation, by the Erste Foundation, the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ja!natürlich organic food brand. The annual budget is 150.000 Euros.
The concept of the DDSP was developed by Philipp Blom, artistic director of the Dachstein Dialoge, in consultation with the Seagull Foundation and its History for Peace program, as well as Prof. Michael Ignatieff and Catrin Neumüller.