WiWiKo-China – Knowledge for Science Cooperation: Research-Based and Action-Guiding China Competence for German Academic Organisations

Science cooperation with the People's Republic of China (PRC) is a complex topic. The WiWiKo-China project seeks to offer up-to-date insights into the opportunities and challenges of collaborating with the PRC, aiming to strengthen the China expertise of Germany's science and research community.

WiWiKo-China is a joint project between the Lise Meitner Research Group (LMRG) ‘China in the Global System of Science’ at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). The project is part of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) funding line ‘Promotion of the regional expansion of China expertise in science (Regio-China)’. In addition to WiWiKo-China, the BMBF selected eleven regional projects that contribute to the expansion of China expertise in the German scientific community through different programmes and thematic focuses.
 

Within this Regio-China group, WiWiKo-China acts as a cross-sectional scientific partner project. It does so by generating knowledge based on exchange with the other Regio-China projects and by providing analyses to further serve their work. These analyses focus on the characteristics of scientific knowledge production in the Chinese context and on China’s rapidly emerging role in the global science system. In particular, they also shed light on current dynamics in China’s domestic and foreign science policy and in the Chinese scientific community and how these affect cooperation with partners in the PRC. In doing so, WiWiKo-China aims to provide further analytical insights for the practical development of China expertise in Germany and to support an empirical approach to assessing the opportunities and challenges of scientific cooperation between German, European and Chinese research institutions. In addition, WiWiKo-China closely and critically follows the debate on the concept of “China competence” and its practice in Germany and Europe. 

WiWiKo-China facilitates the network within the Regio-China project through creating opportunities for joint discussion and critical reflection on these topics. Formats for exchange include a series of workshops, in which requests and thematic suggestions from the regional projects are also taken up and incorporated into the organisation of the workshops. The workshop results are published in the ChinaAHa Papers (China Analyses and Action Competence) and the WiWiKo-China Kits: publicly available on this website (link). Together they serve as a comprehensive inventory of the needs for China expertise development in Germany.

The DAAD draws on its extensive network and in-house expertise: It is made up of the DAAD field offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the experience of the project and scholarship department, the DAAD Centre for International Academic Cooperation (KIWi) at the headquarters in Bonn, as well as the knowledge of its member universities. 

The LMRG studies the social structures of science in contemporary China and the interactions between social norms and values, the political regime and the country's endeavour to become a constitutive and dominant part of global science. The international researchers in the group combine methods from the social sciences, area studies and other disciplines to analyse, among other things, science policy and governance, scientific debates and science communication in China, and the institutional characteristics of international research cooperation with China. 

WiWiKo-China's contribution to China competence building is complemented by a curated literature database, which it continuously updates over the entire project period. Larger public events are also planned over the course of the project.

Visit our event calendar and register for the WiWiKo Newsletter to stay informed about our future activities.