German-Chinese Year of Science 2009/2010

The “German-Chinese Year of Science and Education 2009/2010” took place from March 2009 to June 2010 under the theme “Together on the path to knowledge”.

Logo German-Chinese Year

More than 200 events, workshops and official visits brought together Germans and Chinese from science, education, politics and society at large. This included e.g. the Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau with Chinese young scientists or the participation of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in the German-Chinese promenades in Shenyang and Wuhan on the topic “Sustainable city development”, which were organised in the context of the event series “Germany and Germany - together in motion” (DuC) and attracted more than 300,000 visitors each. In addition, students and scientists were able to find about further activities during the Year of Science, about German education and research institutions and about funding opportunities.

For the first time, “China Weeks” took place at more than 47 universities in Germany whose objective was to inform the public of the partner country and to draw greater attention to the potential of German-Chinese university and research cooperations. A film competition was also held as part of the Year of Science. During the Year of Science, the BMBF funded the China projects of German scientists with a total of nearly EUR two million.

Core areas of the cooperation included top-level research on climate, energy and health issues as well as vocational and university education.

The first and second intergovernmental German-Chinese consultations (2011 in Berlin, 2012 in Beijing) have moved the collaboration between the two countries to a new level. At the intergovernmental consultations, a total of seven joint declarations were signed on educational and research topics. Thematically, the cooperation of the BMBF with China ranges from university cooperation (student/graduate/scientist exchange, university cooperation) and vocational training collaboration to joint activities in different research areas, such as innovation research, life science, environment/ecology, LED technologies, geosciences, marine research and cultural heritage.