Joybrato Mukherjee

Joybrato Mukherjee (born 29 September 1973) is a German professor of English Linguistics and the president of the University of Cologne.

On 1 January 2020, he took office as the DAAD’s current president, thus leading one of the world’s most important funding organisations for the international exchange of students and researchers.

The Executive Board of JLU under Mukherjee's leadership since 2009 has pursued the goal of increasing the basic funding of Hessian universities.

Mukherjee is particularly committed to promoting cooperation involving the different stakeholders in the academic community in the form of regional consortia recommended by the German Council of Science and Humanities.

Amongst other topics, they dealt with the requirements of an increasing digitalisation and with questions concerning the international competitiveness of Germany as a medical location.

In addition to promoting academic exchange, he sees the core tasks of the DAAD as providing advice to the higher education sector and serving as a think tank for internationalisation.

In April 2024, Mukherjee withdrew the Albertus Magnus Professorship 2024 of Jewish-American political theorist Nancy Fraser.

Mukherjee justified the withdrawal by stating that Fraser had signed a pro-Palestinian letter during the Israel-Hamas war that called for a boycott of Israeli educational institutions and universities.

[1] China Miéville rejected his nomination for a DAAD fellowship on the 23 of April, also citing Mukherjee's role in cancelling Nancy Fraser and lack in "faith that the institution will stand against such a shameful program of repression and anti-Palestinian racism.