Closer Cooperation with Chinese Scientists

The Helmholtz Association of National Research Centres officially opens its office in Beijing today. The purpose of the Chinese office is to facilitate cooperation between scientists at the 15 Helmholtz Centres and their Chinese counterparts. After the Brussels office, the office in Beijing is the Helmholtz Association's second representation abroad.

"The Chinese currently make up the third largest national group of all the Helmholtz guest scientists. Given the euphoric mood and the dynamism amongst the scientific community in China, it seems only natural to open our first non-European office in this country", explains Prof. Dr. Walter Kröll.
China is a country with rapidly expanding scientific and technological potential, highly-qualified scientists and engineers and a prospering economy. All these factors mean that the country's research institutes are important strategic partners for the Helmholtz Association. ,German and Chinese scientists working successfully together. The main focus of the cooperation between Chinese institutes and German Helmholtz Centres is on long-term projects in the Helmholtz Association's six research fields: Energy, Earth and Environment, Health, Key Technologies, Structure of Matter, and Transport and Space. In the last 20 years, close relations between Helmholtz researchers and their Chinese partners have been established in many fields; on the Chinese side, Institutes of the Chinese Academy of Scientists, universities, clinics and government institutions are involved.
German and Chinese researchers will outline the wide range of joint scientific projects as part of the scientific programme to accompany the opening celebrations. This includes a cooperative venture between the Research Centre Jülich (FZJ) and six Chinese universities on "the ecological impact of the three-gorges dam"; a project which six other Helmholtz Centres and German universities are looking to become involved in.
A further example is a joint venture between the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) in Darmstadt and the Institute for Modern Physics at the Chinese Academy of the Sciences: over the past few years, an accelerator facility has been jointly planned and built in Lanzhou (regional capital of Gansu). The first experiments are expected to be carried out later this year.
Among the guests attending the opening ceremony are the Deputy Minister of the Chinese Ministry for Science and Technology, Yanhua LIU and the Secretary of State Dr. Wolf-Dieter Dudenhausen from the German Ministry of Education and Research. The presidents of China's National Scientific Foundation and the Chinese Academy of the Sciences, Professor Yiyu CHEN and Professor Yongxiang LU will be representing research on the Chinese side, alongside Helmholtz's President, Professor Walter Kröll.
The Helmholtz Association's office in Beijing: point of contact for Chinese and German scientists Dr. Hong He, head of the Helmholtz Association's Beijing office explains: "Joint ventures must always offer identifiable benefits for both sides. On this basis, our scientists at the Helmholtz Centres are researching highly-complex systems together with their Chinese partners using large-scale facilities and scientific infrastructures. Together they can achieve their goals more swiftly and more efficiently."
The new Helmholtz office in Beijing is the first point of call for counterparts in Germany and China: for the Helmholtz researchers it offers specific information about Chinese politics, the labour market, academic opportunities and research projects. Chinese scientists can obtain information about research terms and the Helmholtz Association's special infrastructure from the Helmholtz office in Beijing. The Chinese office is therefore not just an excellent point of contact for the 15 Helmholtz Centres, but presents Germany in general as an attractive location for training up-and-coming researchers and conducting high-quality research projects. Information on this subject is also available from the Helmholtz Association's Chinese website at www.helmholtz.cn.,The Helmholtz offices in Brussels and Beijing will not remain the Helmholtz Association's only offices abroad. The Association is planning to open a new office in Moscow.
Your Contact at the Beijing Office:,The head of the Beijing office, the Chinese physicist, Dr. Hong He, studied at the University of Huazhong in Wuhan (China) and was awarded his PhD in Jena (Germany) in 1990. He then spent time undertaking research in Oxford (UK). In 1995 he returned to China, where he worked as a researcher at the Medical Institute for Space Travel in Beijing, becoming the Deputy Director of the Medical Care and Supervision Department for Astronauts by the time of his departure. From the year 2000 up to his transfer to the Helmholtz Association, he worked for the city of Beijing as the head of the Department for International Cooperation at the Commission for Science and Technology.,Contacts:,Dr. Hong He,Head of the Helmholtz Beijing Office,Helmholtz Association of National Research Centres,Dongsanhuanbeilu 8, Chaoyang District,Beijing 100004,Tel/Fax: [phone],E-mail: [e-mail]
Dr. Ellen Peerenboom,Communications and Media Relations,Helmholtz Association of National Research Centres,Markgrafenstraße 37,10117 Berlin,Tel/Fax: [phone] /-60,E-mail: [e-mail] its 15 research centres and annual budget of approx 2.2 billion euros the Helmholtz Association is Germanys largest research institution. The 24,000 employees produce top-rate scientific results in six research fields: Energy, Earth and Environment, Health, Key Technologies, Structure of Matter, Transport and Space. The Helmholtz Association identifies and takes on the grand challenges of society, science and the economy, in particular through the investigation of highly complex systems.
This press release is also available in German and Chinese. For photos please contact E-mail: [e-mail]

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