For the first time in the promotion of academic research:
Sino-German research project produces joint doctoral students [05.07.04]
Opening workshop of the Sino-German Research Training Group in Beijing
Doctoral students from the Universität Hohenheim and the China Agricultural University in Beijing are pursuing academic research in tandem, receiving an “elite” education and working on the most urgent environmental and social problems in a country that makes up one fifth of the world’s population. The German Research Foundation (DFG) is providing 1.9 million euros to fund the first Research Training Group run by a German university with partners in China. "Cooperation with China, as an aspiring scientific and academic country, is especially important for the German Research Foundation", comments the President of the DFG, Professor Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker. "The Sino-German Research Training Group illustrates in a quite exemplary manner two of the goals of the German Research Foundation – the promotion of young researchers and internationalisation. The Research Training Group opened with an introductory workshop in Beijing from 5 to 8 July.Ten teams of two, each comprising a young researcher from Hohenheim and Beijing, started their doctoral work on a research project examining the possibilities for sustained resource use within the Beijing conurbation. The academics are hoping to find urgently needed solutions. Intensive farming has concentrated hitherto on achieving yield and has paid little attention to environmental and resource problems, such as soil erosion and the lowering of the groundwater table. The population is also suffering deteriorating health due to pesticides.
Whilst doing so, the exceptionally talented young academics and scientists from both countries are also receiving an elite education. In providing funding for the Research Training Group, the DFG demands a “high quality of scientific and academic research and a high level of originality on an international level” with “an innovative teaching and supervisory structure”, that goes "far beyond the conventional doctoral course”.
"The Universität Hohenheim has played a pioneering role in scientific and academic cooperation with China for the last thirty years”, states the Rector of the Universität Hohenheim, Professor Hans-Peter Liebig. "We have achieved a further milestone with this Sino-German Research Training Group.” Up to now international Research Training Groups have been restricted to cooperation within Europe and the USA. "Our contracts with China are therefore also welcomed in other research institutions as a blueprint for academic and scientific cooperation models.”
Hohenheim has had a cooperation agreement with the China Agricultural University since 1980. We have also trained some Chinese academics in Hohenheim on several previous projects,” comments Professor Liebig. Today five of these students are involved in the Research Training Group as partners. To date, the first four and a half years of the project are being funded by the DFG. If this is extended to nine years, the project could train some 50 or 60 highly-qualified young scientists and academics.
The Research Training Group will start its practical work with a scientific workshop in Beijing from 5 to 7 July. In Hohenheim, a total of ten professors from Agrology, Plant Production, Plant Nutrition, Plant Breeding, Plant Ecology, Physics and Agricultural Economics are also involved. The first Chinese colleagues are expected to come to Hohenheim in August.
Hohenheim’s Project Manager, Professor Reiner Doluschit from the Department of Applied Agricultural Informatics and Management outlines the scope of work of the project: “In order to provide for its population, China invested massively in agriculture in the 70’s.” Nowadays the country is even in a position to export cereals. The problems – such as plant nutrients in the groundwater or soil erosion due to the consequences of sub-optimal crop rotation – are known from previous projects. “Now we wish to quantify the cycles of matter and develop a model that can be transferred to other locations.”
In a second stage, Professor Doluschitz plans to develop concrete solutions: varieties with high efficiency or an alternative crop rotation system that is less damaging to the soil. One group of projects will evaluate how the individual farmers cope with the new adapted agricultural methods and then roll these innovative production methods out from the test areas on a large scale. In doing so the research projects also have a political element. "The reality that agriculture, as it is managed today, cannot continue like this has only been vaguely acknowledged even in China’s universities. In politics they have not yet recognised this.”
Contact for press:
Contact address for queries (not for publication):
Prof. Dr. Reiner DOLUSCHITZ, Spokesman for the German side
Tel: ++49/(0)711/459-22841, agrarinf@uni-hohenheim.de
Prof. Dr. Fusuo ZHANG, Spokesman for the Chinese side, China Agricultural University
Tel.: ++86/10/6289-2499, zhangfs@cau.edu.cn