Partners in Research

The DFG Collaborates with China to Promote Science
Ten Years of the Sino-German Center in Beijing

Nanoscience: Wedding in the Nano-Cosmos | Astronomy: Ancestors of the Sun
Environmental Research: 20 Million Sheep Grazing the Steppes | Soil Science:­Paddy Fields in Flux | Chemistry: Reflections | Economics: Negotiating Negotiation
Palaeoclimatology: The Moods of the Monsoon | Microelectronics: Copper Rain

A Special Edition by the German Research Foundation (DFG)Editorial

A DFG Special Edition

A Unique Combination
Early beginnings, bright future: The long-term close cooperation between the DFG and its
partner organisation, the National Natural Science Foundation, manifests itself especially in
the Sino-German Center for Research Promotion.

On 19 April 2010, FOCUS magazine headlined:“China Getting Dangerously Good: The billion
people empire is much further along than wethink. Will ‘Made in Germany’ survive?” The title story
speaks to an image of China – oscillating between fear,
speculation and admiration – that has been cultivated by
the German media for years, especially on economic relations. So what does China look like from the vantage pointof science, especially basic research?
The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German
Research Foundation) decided in 1996 to enter into a close
cooperation with a Chinese partner organisation, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), totake advantage of the opportunity arising from this unique
combination of two research funding organisations andtheir expertise. Together with the NSFC, the DFG established in Beijing the Sino-German Center for Research
Promotion (SGC), which – after several years of contract
negotiations and construction planning, and about one
year of actual construction work – was inaugurated in theyear 2000. This joint venture was preceded by many yearsof contractual relations; the first contract was signed as
early as 1988, two years after the NSFC had been founded.
The SGC was the DFG’s first international representation,

Content

DFG2established even before the DFG liaison offices in Washington, Moscow, New Delhi and Tokyo.

China continues to develop at a breathtaking pace, often
taking several steps at a time as it advances from adeveloping to an industrialised nation. A side effect of this
rapid progress is that some steps may be startling to those
who don’t actively keep up with China’s evolution, andthat other steps may not be in line with international
stand­ards, as evidenced by an occasionally lax observanceof good scientific practice. But many of these big steps
engender admiration for a people that often needs just one
generation to make the kind of development that took
today’s industrialised countries two or more generations.
I see great opportunities in scientific cooperation between Germany and China. On 19 October 2010 we celebrated the tenth anniversary of our close, successful and– most importantly – trusting collaboration. This collaboration, which manifests itself also in our shared building,works as well as it does also because all the players have
known each other for many years and have established,
across cultural differences, effective mechanisms to jointly
promote bilateral research using a variety of funding instruments.

2

Editorial: A Unique Combination.
By Matthias Kleiner

4

A Joint Venture for Science: The Sino-German Center

15“Enhancing the Bond between Our Countries”.
An essay by Chen Yiyu

22

“A Unique Place”. Interview with Dorothee Dzwonnek

33“Strengthening Our Relations with China
also Strengthens Ourselves”.
Interview with Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker

34

Science Connects.
A report on the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting

Editorial

A DFG Special Edition

calls for proposals on stem cell research, water management, and inverse problems in mathematics. The first twotransregional Collaborative Research Centres deal withnanotechnology and immunology.

DFG/Frenz

O

Together, the DFG and the NSFC have already identified
a number of topical areas in which cooperation seems
especially worthwhile. For example, we have announced

36

Catalyst SGC. Interview with Ferdi Schüth andDorothea Wagner38

West-Eastern Normalcy.
Interview with Ingrid Krüßmann

40

Facts and Figures, Impressum

Statements by Annette Schavan, Federal Minister of Education
and Research (p. 6), Michael Schäfer, Ambassador of the Federal
Republic of Germany to China (p. 8), and Helmut Schwarz,
President of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (p. 36)

Cover image: Nanoscientists Harald Fuchs and Chi Lifeng from the­University of Münster with a low-temperature atomic force microscope.

ver the next decade, collaboration on energy research– especially solar energy – , biodiversity research, andfood safety research seems especially promising. Other
areas that come to mind are the combination of traditional
Chinese medicine with methods and approaches of conventional Western medicine, as well as joint research into
infectious diseases. Many other topics will arise over the
next decade of collaboration. Both the DFG and the NSFC
are science-driven and quality-oriented research fundingorganisations. They can respond flexibly to new ideas generated by the scientific community and, having evaluatedthem positively, support them with the most suitable funding instruments.
One of the many topics that will be the focus of bilateral research funding in the coming years seems especially important and exciting to me: A growing world
population with increasing life expectancy uses more andmore energy. Scientists expect that our total energy consumption will double by 2050 if the current trend holds.
Fossil fuels are not sustainable, which is why we must
become independent of them. Solar energy offers a number of promising alternatives. We are in an excellent position to pursue joint endeavours in these highly attractive fields of research with leading experts from China
and Germany. Basic research in chemistry, physics andmaterials science will be key here. We have an enormous
amount of research to do together, in these and manyother disciplines.
Prof. Dr. Matthias Kleiner
President of the DFG

From the Field
10

Soil Science: Paddy Fields in Flux

12

Marine Palaeoclimatology: The Moods of the Monsoon

18

Astronomy: Ancestors of the Sun

20

Economics: Negotiating Negotiation

24

Environmental Research:
20 Million Sheep Grazing the Steppes

27

Chemistry: Deceitful Reflections

28

Microelectronics: Copper Rain

30

Nanoscience: Wedding in the Nano-Cosmos

3Kapitelobertitel

A DFG Special Edition

A Joint Venture for Science
The Sino-German Center in Beijing turned ten

DFG

4

Y

ou have to build nests to lurebirds, says a Chinese proverb.
Perhaps that is one reason why
scientific cooperation between Germany and China has its own address.
Right next to the building of the National Natural Science Foundation ofChina (NSFC), the NSFC and the DFG
opened the Sino-German Center for
Research Promotion (SGC) as a joint
venture in October 2000. The missionof this institution is to increase contacts between German and Chinese
researchers, function as a catalyst forjoint research projects, and provide
funding for them.
At the stroke of a key, the Internet
search engine’s map feature locatesthe address: Shuang Qing Lu 83, on
the northwest side of the capital.
Beida, the world-renowned Beijing
University, is close by, and just one
block further is the Beijing Forestry
University. It’s about one kilometre to
walk to the east gate of the renowned
Tsinghua University. Even in old
China, the Haidian neighbourhood
was a business centre within the capital, located not far from the imperial
summer palace. After the Cultural
Revolution ended 30 years ago andthe country increasingly opened itself
to the world and the West, a young,dynamic high-tech industry developed quite rapidly here amidst numerous academic institutions.

That’s why it may have been an obvious choice for the NSFC – the DFG’spartner organisation in China, established in 1986 – to set up its head officein this environment, and for both organisations to erect here their joint
centre for the intensification of scientific collaboration. The SGC building
also houses eleven apartments to accommodate researchers while they
visit Beijing, as well as an auditorium
for about 350 people, equipped with asimultaneous interpreting system. And
modern video conferencing technology shrinks the distance of 7,815 kilometres between Beijing and Bonn,where the DFG is headquartered, tothe length of a room.

Sino-German Center

A DFG Special Edition

Shuang Qing Lu 83: Since its inception,
the SGC has been seen worldwide as asymbol of successful cooperation on
research funding.

Tbuilding, on top of actual researchfunding.”
In the mid-1990s, after the plan toestablish a joint institution had matured between both research organisations, one thing followed another.
On 26 May 1998, Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker and Zhang Cunhao, the presidents of the DFG and the NSFC at thetime, already laid the cornerstone forthe common building – accompaniedby the sounds of the Bavarian Welcome March, a tribute to the German
partner. The cost of the new construction was shared evenly, with the German portion of five million deutschmarks provided by the Donors’
Association for the Promotion of Sciences and Humanities (Stifterverband
für die Deutsche Wissenschaft). On 19
October 2000, the Sino-German Center for Research Promotion opened its

DFG (4)

his morning, a technician at theDFG Head Office in Bonn is setting up the connection at 8:00 AM.
The conference table opens toward
the front of the room, where we lookat two large wall monitors. On one
screen we can see ourselves; theother one shows our discussion partners in Beijing, where it’s 2:00 PM
right now. If we look straight into thecamera, we can make eye contact. On
the table, both here and there, aresensitive microphones. And when wetalk to each other, we feel the distance only in the slight delays thatslow down the conversational flow a

bit due to the signal transmission
times.
I learn that even now, after a whole
decade of successful collaboration,
both research organisations still consider this a unique undertaking.
“When we decided in 1998 to establish the SGC as a joint venture of the
NSFC and the DFG, and that we’dwant a dedicated building to promotecollaboration between Chinese andGerman researchers, we knew wewere in for an adventure,” says Harald
von Kalm, who heads the DFG’s Central Administration Department. “No
one could know whether an administrative body materialised in thismanner would actually be able towork successfully. And of course wealso had some doubts whether it
would be a good idea to invest a lot ofmoney into the infrastructure of a

Adventure and tour de force: Cornerstone ceremony in 1998, construction phase, opening ceremony on 19 October 2000 – theSino-German Center for Research Promotion in Beijing has been a prominent symbol of the increasingly close relations between theDeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). These relations are also embodied by the Center’s leadership (left to right): Zhao Miaogen (Vice Director on the German side) and Armin Krawisch (German Director),
Han Jianguo (Chinese Director) and his deputy Chen Lesheng.

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Sino-German Center

doors – poignantly enough, with aChinese-German symposium on complex systems.
The experiment was a success. Today the SGC is seen worldwide as asymbol of successful bilateral cooperation on research funding. It has its
own funding budget to support activities in Chinese-German scientificcollaboration, such as workshops,
symposiums, summer schools, cooperation groups, and research projects.
“Altogether we’ve already funded
several hundred projects through the
SGC,” says Han Jianguo, one of thetwo directors of the SGC. “As we pursue our mission to instigate cooperative research relationships, as well as

A DFG Special Edition

to deepen them over the long term,
we use not only the funding programmes of the SGC but also various
other instruments offered by the DFG
and the NSFC.”T

he SGC programmes focus on supporting specific bilateral research
projects in the natural, life, management and engineering sciences. Thus
they cover about 80 percent of the
DFG’s more broadly based national
funding portfolio, which also includes
the social sciences and humanities.
“These subject priorities are based on
the funding mission of the NSFC in
China,” explains Han, adding that “inall SGC activities, we focus especially“A key institution in
Sino-German cooperation”
Successful science and research are basedon international networks and dialogue
across national borders. Researchers mustcooperate across disciplines, countries
and continents to find sustainable solutions to the urgent challenges of ourtimes, such as climate change, increasing
urbanisation, or secure energy and water supply. For this reason, the German
Ministry of Education and Research supports worldwide collaboration between
researchers. One of our most importantpartners is China.
The Sino-German Center for Research
Promotion (SGC), which is run jointly by
the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft(DFG) und die National Natural Science
Foundation of China (NSFC), celebrated
its tenth anniversary on 19 October 2010.
The SGC is a key institution in Sino-German cooperation and a symbol of thepartnership between both countries.
Chinese and German researchers are collaborating successfully on many topics.
Their specialties often complement eachother. This was also seen in the manydifferent activities during the GermanChinese Year of Science and Education
2009/2010. Under the motto “Together
on the road to knowledge”, this event
further intensified the scientific and academic dialogue between the two countries.

BMBF

6

Following more than 30 years of modern
scientific and technological cooperation,
Sino-German cooperation has reached ascope and depth that go beyond project
collaboration alone and allow institutional
cooperation as well. The SGC is an excellent case in point. Sino-German researchcooperation is evolving towards bigger,
more long-term, institutionalised forms ofcollaboration. It thus becomes possible topool the two countries’ respective areasof strength and establish joint centres of
excellence. China and Germany will work
closely together on key issues of the 21st
century as equal and complementary
partners. The SGC will continue to play amajor role in this endeavour.
Prof. Dr. Annette Schavan,­Member of the Bundestag
Federal Minister of Education
and Researchon funding collaboration between
Chinese and German researchers whoare in the early stages of their careers.” Of course the Center is also
responsible for providing advice andinformation on research priorities,
funding activities, and suitable partners for scientific collaboration in theother country, as well as for improving the infrastructural framework forresearch cooperation between China
and Germany.
“From the very beginning, the idea
was to set up the SGC as a true joint
venture and therefore to erect a building that stands for our two organisations as well as for the experiment,”
says Harald von Kalm. Both sponsoring organisations agreed to establish
the Center as an independent legal
entity under Chinese law. Its legal
representative is the NSFC Vice President in charge of international affairs.
“Even today, the SGC is a truly uniqueinstitution that could serve as a model
for cooperation with other countries
as well,” notes Armin Krawisch, theGerman SGC Director. DFG and NSFC
each provide one director and one
vice director. This four-member internal board of directors leads the Centerin organisational terms and works
with the sponsoring organisations tohandle proposals. There are indeed
differences between the German andChinese funding systems, says
Krawisch, but “we decide everything
together based on review proceduresthat involve German and Chinese experts. Finally we make a joint decision
to fund or to decline, right here at thistable, in this room.”A

click of the mouse, and the webbrowser calls up a satellite image
with photorealistic details of the areasurrounding Shuang Qing Lu 83. A
magnified bird’s eye view even showsdetails of the NSFC and SGC buildings. Especially conspicuous and clear
to see is the footpath-crossed roof garden atop the SGC auditorium. “Thatwas something the German side
wanted,” remembers Ingrid Krüßmann, who has worked for the DFG

Sino-German Center

Lichtenscheidt

A DFG Special Edition

Video conferences between participants in Bonn and Beijing are another method – in addition to the usual Internet-based communications – for facilitating close contact between NSFC und DFG.

from the very beginning on developing the SGC, and today, as a DFG Director for International Affairs, provides scientific support to the SGC, inaddition to her responsibility for the
East Asia region. She admits that
there were some disagreements onwhat should be done and what thebuilding should look like. For example, the German architect wanted to
put the entrance in the middle of thebuilding, whereas his Chinese colleague insisted on positioning it on
the left side. But with all delays andin spite of a rather lengthy discussion
process early on about the rules ofcooperation, “in the end we always
worked it out somehow.”“This is my third visit to your country,” said Johannes Rau, then the
President of the Federal Republic of
Germany, when he spoke before students at Tsinghua University in Sep-

tember 2003 about the role of Germany and China in the world. His
previous visit had been in 1998, andhe was curious to experience therapid processes of change and development in China. “I can say without

Germany’s
President at
the Center
exaggeration that I’ve come to a new
country,” said Rau in 2003 and quoted
from a reportage book he had read toprepare for his trip. In it, he had founda dialogue between a foreigner and aChinese historian, in which the Chinese says this about the pace of reforms and the changes they brought
about in the nation: “We used to getmaybe two big changes and threesmall ones in a whole year. But since
1993 or 1994, the wheel has beenturning faster and faster. You wake up
and you’re relieved to see that yourbed is still in the bedroom.”Johannes Rau also visited the SGC,
just a few blocks away. “There havebeen a number of important events
over the years here at the Center,”says Han Jianguo. “Probably once aweek the auditorium fills to the lastseat. But I’ll never forget the visit byPresident Johannes Rau.” I ask him
about his experience of the changes.
Well, he says, it starts with traffic conditions in the city, which have become
increasingly complicated. “Around
midnight, it’s maybe 15-minute drive
to get here from Tiananmen Square,
which is the heart of Beijing. But inthe morning during rush hour, it’ll
take you easily 1½ to 2 hours.” “Right7

Sino-German Center

A DFG Special Edition“Germany and China are important centres within the global
education system”
In October 2000 the Sino-German Center
for Research Promotion (SGC) was established in Beijing jointly by the National
Natural Science Foundation of China(NSFC) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). This made it possible
to significantly expand and deepen bilateral cooperation on basic research in thenatural, life, engineering and management sciences. The SGC is a symbol of
our friendly and forward-looking scientificcooperation.

German embassy in Beijing

8

Germany and China are important centres within the global education system.
Both countries can look back on long traditions that highly value the acquisition of
new knowledge.
I am especially pleased that the SGC also
provides intensive support for the mobility of early-stage researchers, for example
through the Lindau Programme. Thisbuilds bridges between young talent andleading scientists that expand and ultimately institutionalise international networks in top-level research.
Our bilateral cooperation needs people
on both sides who know and understandtheir counterparts’ culture, traditions
and language. We have made significant progress in recent years on mutual
understanding, and the SGC has been
instrumental to it. But we can and mustdo even more to further expand collaboration among the world’s best minds.

now they’re building a metro line to
the Sino-German Center. There’s a lotof construction going on in general,”reports Armin Krawisch, “which unfortunately tends to replace the old,typical Beijing cityscape with a somewhat blandly modern, international
style of architecture.”
In 2003, more than 13,000 Chinese
students were enrolled at German
universities – and in Germany, as Johannes Rau noted in his Tsinghua
speech, studying in China was alreadyconsidered an “insider tip and additional qualification” for professional
life: “These young people demonstrate the interest that our countries

I am convinced that if we keep integrating young talent into bilateral researchcollaboration, we will continue to be able
to tap many new areas of cooperation.
Germany and China together will be able
to make a major contribution to solving
urgent economic, social, political and scientific problems. In this spirit, I wish the
SGC much continued success. The German embassy will continue to support
the Sino-German Center for Research
Promotion.
Dr. Michael Schaefer
Ambassador of the Federal Republicof Germany in China

take in each other. At the same time,they ensure that the relationship between our countries will continue tobe characterised by understanding
and friendship.”
So what has the SGC experience
been like? For example, do German
and Chinese researchers always understand each other right away?
“Generally speaking, communication
has not been an issue,” says Han­Jianguo. Besides, scientific exchange
between Germany and China harks
back to a long tradition. “Consider Johann Adam Schall von Bell, a German
Jesuit who garnered great respect asa scientist in the old China. In 1644,

Adam Schall was even appointed
President of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau by the Emperor.” Armin
Krawisch agrees that there are no major obstacles to scientific exchange,
especially because English serves as
the lingua franca of science, also between Germany and China:“We notice in younger researchersthat mutual cultural understanding is
improving. Part of the reason is certainly that more and more Chinese
researchers have been on visitsabroad, and that number continues togrow.”In mid-2005, the Center underwent an evaluation, coordinated on

Evaluation reveals
potential.
the German side by the Institute for
Research Information and Quality Assurance in Bonn. One of the questions
under investigation was whether theoriginal SGC concept had stood thetest of the rapidly changing times in
China. After all, the nation’s research
output – starting from a relatively low
baseline – had more than tripled since
the mid-1990s, while in Germany it
had remained stagnant, albeit at ahigh level. While China increasingly
pushed priority topics, research inGermany continued to be topicallydiverse. The evaluation, by peer review through a panel of experts from
China and Germany, came to a generally positive conclusion. “It has helped
us realign our funding programmes,”
says Ingrid Krüßmann. “And even thereview process itself brought newlight to our mutual understanding,”says Armin Krawisch, noting that thetwo countries come from different
traditions of scientific review. For example, criticism in China tends to be
formulated in a more restrained andindirect manner.
The powerful potential of the SGC
was apparent when the new SARS
virus broke out in south China earlyin 2003. Together, the DFG and the
NSFC were able to respond quicklySino-German Center

A DFG Special Edition

DFG

The SGC in the focus of politics: German
President Johannes Rau also paid a visit to
the Center when he travelled to China in
2003.

and efficiently. When, shortly after
SARS had been introduced to Germany, virologists at the Bernhard
Nocht Institute in Hamburg were able
to isolate the new coronavirus and to
identify it in international collaboration as the cause of the disease, the
SGC sponsored a symposium in Bei-jing in June of 2003. It gave a smalldelegation of German scientists theopportunity to discuss with Chinesecolleagues all aspects of the SARS
epidemic and the resulting need forresearch. “This example of our work
clearly points toward the future of ourCenter,” notes Armin Krawisch. “Go-ing forward, we’ll provide even morecomprehensive information on our
website about new scientific developments in both countries. I think theCenter will increasingly become also
a forum for information and communication.”
Han Jianguo is likewise convincedthat the SGC is set to play an importantpart in German-Chinese scientific relations in the years to come. “Our special
opportunity is that we’re well networked with both the German research organisations and the Chinese
funding institutions.” And while thehumanities are outside of the NSFC’s
funding spectrum and such research
projects can therefore not be funded
via the SGC, even this researcher species has been sighted at the SGC – atnight, as residential guests. When it
comes to accommodations, all disciplines are equal: first come, first served.

DFG / Kristine AugustShen Wenqing, Vice President of the NSFC, visits DFG President Matthias Kleiner at the DFG Head Office in Bonn.

Dieter Beste910

Soil Science

A DFG Special Edition

Paddy Fields in Flux
A German-Chinese Research Unit is studying paddy rice soils in the Yangtze Delta whichhave been cultivated for different lengths of time to discover the underlying biogeo­
chemical processes.

W

hat happens to soils whichhave been cultivated by
man for very long periodsof time? What, for example, takes
place within the extremely wet soil inwhich rice plants, which are particularly thirsty, are grown? In order tothrive, they must stand several centimetres deep in water during their maturing season; this is why the farmers
dam their fields to keep the water till
harvest time. In Southeast Asia, people have been using this method togrow rice for thousands of years. Noone, however, knows exactly how thesoils, which are known as paddy soils,
react to this treatment.
By providing a unique soil archive,
China’s Yangtze Delta provides an opportunity to gain an answer to thisquestion. Because river deltas areconstantly being enlarged by the deposition of sediments, the farmers in
the Yangtze Delta have kept building
new dams and, over the centuries,
have gradually added the extra land
to their paddy fields. Historical sources
enable the dams’ origins – and thus
the age of the paddy soils – to be precisely pinpointed: they range from2000 year-old soils at the delta’s interior to 50 years young at its edge. Thishas provided scientists with a welldocumented chronological sequence,
enabling them to examine paddy soils
which have been cultivated for different lengths of time and to comparethem with non-irrigated control soilsof up to 700 years old.
It was an unusual sight for Chineseeyes when, in summer 2008, a groupof German researchers of both genders, clad in sun hats and either barefoot or wearing wellington boots, de-scended on a rice field in Cixi, in thelarger area of the Yangtze Delta, totake soil samples and dig soil profiles.
“The Chinese found it incredible thatwomen were carrying out fieldwork”,
remembers Ingrid Kögel-Knabner, aprofessor of soil science at the Technische Universität München in Weihenstephan. For her personally, theexpedition was also an unusual one,as the geoecologist had no previous
experience with paddy soils. Several
years ago, however, she was approached by Professor Cao Zhihong.
The researcher from the Institute ofSoil Science at the Chinese Academyof Sciences in Nanjing was looking forsoil science experts in Germany to research paddy soils. Kögel-Knabner
was immediately excited at the prospect of a collaboration project.

R

ice is the most significant staple
food in the world. In 2008, farmers around the world produced 661
million tons of rice on just under 155
million hectares of land, with almosta third of this amount being grown in
China alone. The lion’s share of rice iscultivated using artificial irrigation inflooded fields or terraces. It is not,however, merely the huge area on
which this grain is grown that is impressive. Instead, the length of time
for which humans have been cultivating rice is remarkable. According toGerman 14C analyses, the earliest evidence of domesticated rice cultivationin China dates back around 6000 to7000 years, with Chinese researchers
assuming that it was being cultivatedas long ago as 8000 years. “Of course,”
Kögel-Knabner explains, “every Asian
country wants to be the first to havedeveloped rice cultivation.” Together
with Cao, who is particularly interested in the project’s archaeologicalaspect, she organised a workshop(supported by the Sino-German Center) on prehistoric paddy soils. A further workshop, this time focusing on
more recent developments, followed.
This resulted in the establishment of
the “Biogeochemistry of Paddy Soil
Evolution” Research Unit in 2008.
This Research Unit is funded by the
DFG and involves numerous institutions in Germany and three in Nanjing. The researchers involved areconcerned less with the fossil soils andmore with the recent paddy soils.
Soils are complex systems of mineral and organic substances whose
physical, biological and chemical
makeup is constantly changing. One
important factor in their development
is their reduction potential, which
provides information about the availability of oxygen in the soil. In redox
reactions, which usually involve microbe catalysts, electrodes are transferred from a donor, the reducing
agent, to a recipient, the oxidising
agent. Substances which accept theelectrons and give off oxygen are reduced; those which donate electrons
and absorb oxygen are oxidised. This
type of process influences the weathering of minerals, the mobility of nutrients and pollutants, microbial activity and, thus, the conversion oforganic soil matter.
Ploughed, or well-aerated, soils intemperate zones are oxic: oxygen ispresent in sufficient quantities andthe reduction potential is high. In
relatively dry winters, the sub-tropical
Yangtze Delta follows this pattern.

11

Research Unit 995

A DFG Special Edition

Researchers from Research Unit 995 take soil samples from a 300-year-old rice paddy in the Zhejiang Province of the Yangtze Delta.

of methane emissions. They contribute between ten and 25 percent of thegreenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The carbon compounds photosynthesised by the plants remain in the soil
as field residues, where anaerobic bacteria break down the organic substances under conditions of extreme
reduction. They cause fermentationand produce methane. Paddy rice cultivation interspersed with winterwheat cultivation is less damaging to
the environment.

For the first time, however, the Research Unit has now used thechronosequence to quantify a reverse
process for the climate. Paddy soils accumulate organic substances, andthus carbon. Their concentration in
paddy soils is much higher than in unirrigated soils, and it increases withage and depth. Loose organic materialtransported downwards will stabilise
itself, ensuring that microorganisms
do not decompose the dead plant material as efficiently due to lack of oxygen. This means that less methane
and CO2 is released into the atmosphere. One of the triggers is the rapid
decalcification of the paddy soil; notonly does the leaching of calcium
mean that the pH buffer is missing, italso accelerates weathering reactions.

In order for the carbon compounds tobe stored, they must bind to minerals.
According to Kögel-Knabner, it isprobably the more intensive weathering which has created these conditions by reducing the stone to tiny
particles of clay, thereby releasing ironoxides and increasing the specific surface of the mineral phase.
In continuing to analyse and evaluate the soil samples and profiles in
the lab, the Research Unit still has
much to do. The German and Chinese
researchers anticipate exciting resultsfrom the quantitative assessment of
the biogeochemical processes in ricesoils.
Marion Kälke

R. Jahn

Iron renders soil evolution visible: ironoxides dye young paddy soils brown, while
reduced iron, which is readily soluble andextremely mobile, leaves the 2,000-yearold soil looking pale.
P. SchadThis is when the farmers grow wheat
and other field crops. The rainy summer, on the other hand, is the season
for paddy rice. The water, however,has drastic consequences for the
deeper soil layers, as microorganisms
accept electrons and very quickly exhaust the available oxygen. While therice plant in the rhizosphere, the root
zone, uses aerenchyma to continue toensure oxygen supplies, the earth below becomes anoxic, and reduced
substances lower the reduction potential. “There’s a real redox cascade happening,” explains Kögel-Knabner.
First, nitrogen is reduced to dinitrogenand nitrous oxide. Manganese, ironand sulphur follow before methane isreleased.
The periodic redox cycles in paddy
soils have a tremendous effect on the
dynamics of long-term biogeochemical processes. The water affects what
is washed out and what becomesbonded, determining which clay minerals, which iron oxides and how
much humus are available to act as
ion exchangers for nutrients and pollutants. An oxygen-free environment
quickly results in considerable loss ofnitrogen, the growth engine for all
plants, which evaporates as a gas. In
principle, however, the changes forthe soil and the yield from the extremely undemanding rice plants are
obviously neither good nor bad.
There are, however, relevant ecological effects. Comprehensive studies
prove that paddy soils – like swamps– are one of the world’s largest sources

12

Marine Palaeoclimatology

A DFG Special Edition

The Moods of the Monsoon
Using sediment cores from the South China Sea, geoscientists from Kiel and Shanghai
discovered how closely the climates of East Asia and Greenland are interconnected.

F

armers and fishermen in China
and Vietnam would be absolutely astonished if someone
tried to explain to them that their
monsoon is closely tied to Greenland‘sice, located thousands of kilometresaway. They are happy if the summer
wind brings the right amount of rain
and if the fishing grounds off the coast
are plentiful. But, over the course of
the Earth‘s history, precisely this has
been found to be closely tied to conditions in the high north, a phenomenon that climate researchers call teleconnection: two instruments play insync in the orchestra of the world‘sclimate. “If it is warm in Greenland,
there is a large amount of precipitation in South Asia“, says Michael
Sarnthein, professor emeritus at theInstitute of Geosciences at the University of Kiel. “And, if an extremely cold
phase occurs in Greenland, the monsoon collapses here. An atmosphericcontrol by the West Wind Drift is responsible for this.“
The first researchers to verify thisteleconnection were the teams ofSarnthein and Professor Wang ­Pinxian
from the Department for Marine Geology and Geophysics at Tongji University in Shanghai. The “Monitor
Monsun” expedition was the first systematic study in the South China Sea.
This work was undertaken using theGerman research vessel “Sonne” in1994 and funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation). The comparison of the sediment cores collected there with the Greenland ice
cores showed clear parallels between
the monsoon intensities and climatechanges in the north. Their results
were confirmed a short time later by
a research group that studied stalagmites in the Hulu Cave near Nanjing.
“Today, it is that study which is always
cited. That’s the way the world is.”Sarnthein smiles shrewdly. “Eventhough we had previously cleanly
linked the data to one another.”
The expedition was the first highpoint of the collaboration and friendship between the two researchers.
They met in 1981/82 when Wang wasa guest in Kiel as a Humboldt Professor.
Living abroad, Wang became acquainted with what was, at the time
for him, a foreign way of living andresearching in Europe. And Sarnthein,
to this day held in high regard above
all for his climate reconstruction in the
North Atlantic, found great interest in
the East Asian monsoon. Following the“Monitor Monsun” project was a cooperation within the framework of the
Ocean Drilling Programme and aworking group of the IMAGES project(International Marine Past Global
Changes Study), of which Sarnthein
was the executive director. The researchers met periodically at conventions, conferences and visits, many ofwhich were supported by the SinoGerman Center. In 1998 Sarnthein wasawarded the honorary professorship ofTongji University. The two remain inclose contact to this day. China’s government-funded 111 Programme has
been in place since 2006 and enables
the top institutes to invite foreign researchers. Sarnthein coordinates theguest stays for Tongji University.
“For the Chinese, research of theSouth China Sea was of national interest”, says Sarnthein, because thefate of billions of people is dependent

on the monsoon. Normally, its seasonal change of direction, a responseto the continental high- and low-pressure cells, brings a cool, dry winterand a warm, wet summer. Dependingon the season, these changes affectthe current intensities and directionin the sea, the surface temperature of
the water as well as its salinity. If thissystem falls out of sync, droughts or
floods may result. The need to understand the driving force behind this isof great importance to everyone who
is directly affected. A look back in geologic history, into the diary of thesediments, promises to reveal important clues that may aid in the understanding of today’s man-made greenhouse effect.

T

he researchers concentrated primarily on the Quaternary, whichbegan 2.6 million years ago and which
includes the Pleistocene, as well as thecurrent warm period, the Holocene.
To obtain the most precise data possible, they opted for a “multi-proxyapproach”. Among the classic proxies– the signals from the past – are fossil
planktonic and benthic foraminifera.
These are unicellular organisms that
store information about the temperature, salinity and carbon cycle in theirlime shells and, thus, about the nutrient conditions, precipitation quantities, wind directions and water circulation as well. In addition, alkenones,
which are biomarkers (fatty acids)
created by microalgae, indicate how
warm or cold it was in the past. Fromthe grain size of the sediments, theresearchers can also determine
whether they washed up from rivers
or were deposited by the wind, i.e.
whether the climate was moist or if

A DFG Special Edition

Marine Paläoklimatologie

picture alliance / landov

The summer monsoon rains, provided they are moderate, are Asia’s elixir of life.
But the monsoon system responds extremely sensitively to global climate fluctuations.
The photo shows rain clouds above the Xijiang River near Wuzhou.

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Marine Paläoklimatologie

A DFG Special Edition

Wilma Rehder, SONNE 95 (2)14

On the “Sonne 95” expedition, researchers, including Wang Pinxian, collect samples from a box corer.

Wang Luejiang leads the transport of a
6-metre sediment core.

drought conditions prevailed. The
range of pollen species carried by thewind contains clues as well.
The coarse rhythms of the Earth’s
climate tick to an astronomic clock: theEarth’s orbit around the sun varies inperiodic spans of approximately
20,000, 40,000 and 100,000 years, theangle of incidence of the sunrays varies
and, thus, so too does their strength.
These Milankovitch cycles produce
cool and warm phases, glacials and interglacials. A strong winter monsoon
and a weak summer monsoon are
typical for glacial periods, even more
so for other, short cold stages. The

during warm periods, warm surface
water flowed from the tropical West
Pacific through straights near Borneo
into the South China Sea. When thesea level is low, however, the straights
were closed off. As a result, cool andnutrient-rich surface water flowed infrom the northeast.

Outliers in the
climate cycles
scarce summer rains mean drought for
China. Inversely, the summer monsoon strengthens during the warm
periods, while the winter winds wane:
on land, it becomes moist.
Surprisingly, fish also do well during the interglacials: the summer
winds, which blow to the north andare deflected to the right by the
Earth’s rotation and the Coriolis effect, result in upwelling off the coastof Vietnam, bringing nutrient-richdeepwater towards the surface. A coldor warm climate also determines thesea level: depending how much water
is trapped in the polar ice, the levelcan, in extreme cases, fluctuate by asmuch as 140 metres. This has considerable impact on marine circulation:The high sedimentation rates of theSouth China Sea and the associated high temporal resolution also
provide insight on the abrupt climatechanges, the outliers within the large
cycles. Even during our relatively homogenous warm period, there were
spontaneous cold waves 8200 and
4200 years ago that were in sync withthose of the North Atlantic. The history books also include records of sudden periods of warming. At the endof the Younger Dryas, the last severe
cold snap prior to the Holocene, monsoon precipitation off the coast ofHong Kong increased greatly in lessthan 50 to 100 years. “They are very
well reflected in the low salinity andin the sludge deposits from the rivers”,
explains Sarnthein. The sea surface
suddenly warmed in all parts of theSouth China Sea. At this time, thetemperature in Greenland had increased by 15 degrees Celsius withinjust a few years. “Thus, we can say
with precision that the Holocene began 11,700 years ago.”
During the past 110,000 years, morethan 20 massive temperature jumps inGreenland have been documented. The
abrupt warming was always followed

by a gradual period of cooling that
ended in bitter cold. All of this occurredin an interval of 1500 years. Taking
their name from the discoverers, these
are called the Dansgaard/Oeschger
cycles. In each cycle, the climate again
reversed; in every fourth to fifth – theso-called “Heinrich events” – the effect
was particularly pronounced: giant icebergs broke off from glaciers whichthen melted in the sea water and added
freshwater to the North Atlantic; thissettled on top of the more dense sea
water, causing the “thermohaline circulation” of the North Atlantic current
system – the natural heating system for
Europe – to break down, leading toparticularly chilly periods. Warm
Dansgaard/­Oeschger cycles and cold
Heinrich events find their counterpart
in the fluctuations of the East Asianand Indian monsoons. The system is ahighly sensitive instrument in the climate orchestra. It responds delicately
to deviating tones in the atmosphere,
ice volumes and the dynamics of thethermohaline pipeline pattern of theoceans.
After almost 30 years, the researchers from Kiel and Shanghai havenearly grown into a family. The memory of the young Wang Luejiang, who
perished in 1999 while diving in theSouth China Sea, is a painful one. According to Sarnthein, who co-reviewed Wang Luejiang’s doctoral research, he was a brilliant mind. They
are all pioneers in palaeomonsoon
research. “Wang Pinxian is the emperor in this field in East Asia”, says
Sarnthein, who has himself won
many awards. Together, they havealso experienced the change in science culture. When Sarnthein presented a paper for the first time in
China in 1985, every single sentence
had to be slowly and painstakingly
translated. “At that time, the highly
motivated Chinese students would
devour the knowledge”, he reports.
Today, he recommends to his grandchildren’s generation that “they spendsome time in China if they would liketo make something of their career”.
Marion Kälke

EssayA DFG Special Edition“Enhancing the Bondbetween Our Countries”
Hand in hand for the future of Sino-German research cooperationIn 2010 the partnership between the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the DFG turned 22,
and the Sino-German Center for Research Promotion (SGC) celebrated its tenth birthday. Professor Chen Yiyu,
President of the NSFC, thanks all the researchers and contributors who are committed to cooperation between China
and Germany.

S

cience has no national borders. Both China and Germany have a long and rich history of scientific research.
Scientists from our two countries have made importantinventions and discoveries that benefit the whole world.
Four centuries ago, the German missionaries Johann
Schreck and Johann Adam Schall von Bell and their Chinese partner Wang Zheng edited and translated a numberof Western scientific books. They initiated close cooperation between Chinese and German scholars, but more
importantly, they bridged the gap between the Chineseand Western cultures to an extent beyond their contemporaries’ expectation. Leibniz vividly described the exchange between the Chinese and Germanic peoples bysaying that they should “learn from each other’s merits,
lighting one civilisation’s lamp with that of another”.
In my own research experience, I learned the significance of communication with international peers and benefited a lot from it. In my study of integrated river-basin
management and ecosystem management in China, I drew
lessons from the successful management model of the river
Rhine. European countries had a twenty-year debate regarding the development of the Rhine. The early Rhine
waterway had many bends. To reduce the negative impact,canals were built to straighten the river, but today, theRhine is being restored to its natural state. Based on international experience as well as the situation in China, I
suggested that China should treat rivers as living systems
and take an integrated approach to protect their health.
As President of the Chinese National Committee for
DIVERSITAS and the National Committee for the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, I have been
dedicating myself to the mitigation and adaptation studies
of climate change. I know very well that to solve global
scientific issues, interdisciplinary and cross-border cooperation is indispensable. Research funding organisations

Professor Chen Yiyu is the President of the National Natural­Science Foundation of China.

NSFC

In the 21st Century, scientific research is becoming increasingly international. We are seeing the growth of transnational and transcontinental scientific programmes andresearch activities. The global allocation of scientific resources and the flow of scientific talent across borders arealso increasing. At the same time, the Earth on which welive is facing a series of global challenges, such as climatechange, epidemic diseases, loss of biodiversity, and an energy crisis. These issues have become common concernsof the scientific community and of governments in all
countries. The global innovation network has enabled scientists from different countries to work side by side to
explore solutions to these issues while sharing their knowledge, findings and experiences as well as enhancing mutual understanding and friendship.

15

EssayA DFG Special Edition

on stem cells and water resources in 2009. All these efforts
have served as a bridge and platform for Chinese and German scientists, boosted the development of basic researchin our two countries, and benefited the growth of talented
researchers. The NSFC’s cooperation with Germany has
become a main channel and played an irreplaceable role inSino-German scientific cooperation.

T

DFG

16

Chen Yiyu and Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, the DFG President at thetime, after signing an agreement between the NSFC and the DFG.

should work hard to create a favourable environment for
facilitating the cooperation and exchange of scientists andset up an open platform for cooperation and innovation.
The formation of a mutually beneficial partnership between the NSFC and the DFG and the joint founding of
the Sino-German Center (SGC) not only reflect the trendof international scientific cooperation, but also meet the
expectations and needs of scientists in our two countries
by strengthening cooperation and exchange.
Since the NSFC was established in 1986, it has been attaching great importance to international cooperation. So
far, it has established partnership with 69 foreign researchfunding agencies, research institutions and internationalorganisations to jointly fund research, academic workshops
and personnel exchanges. We think highly of the cooperation with Germany. The DFG was one of the first fundingorganisations to establish a formal relationship with theNSFC. It is also one of the NSFC’s most important strategic
partners. Since 1988, our bilateral relations and cooperation
have made steady progress in both scope and depth. The
NSFC’s joint activities with Germany now include personnel
exchanges, joint research projects, major joint research programmes, and SGC projects. From 2001 to 2009, the NSFC
funded 600 exchange projects and 41 joint research projects
between Chinese and German researchers with a total volume of 15 million RMB (1.7 million euros) and 35.33 million RMB (4 million euros) respectively, which includes,
within the framework of the NSFC / DFG agreement, over
20 bilateral workshops, more than 250 exchange programmes, one Sino-German Joint Interdisciplinary Research Programme in 2008, and 11 joint research projects

he Sino-German Center is a pioneering endeavour ininternational cooperation. Through bilateral workshops,
joint research, collaborative groups, personnel exchanges,
publications etc., the Center has made significant contributions to cooperation between Chinese and German scientists. Over the past decade, the Center has funded 410 programmes with a total volume of 300 million RMB (34.5
million euros) provided by NSFC and DFG, giving financial
support to 14,000 Chinese and German scientists. In thespring of 2003, China experienced an outbreak of SARS. At
this critical moment, the Center organised the Sino-German
Seminar on SARS Prevention and Treatment in Beijing. The
former German Federal President Johannes Rau said, du­ring his visit to the Center, that the workshop enabled scientists to support each other in the global fight against thisdangerous new virus, and both countries are benefited.
Since 2004, the Center has supported 191 outstanding Chinese PhD students to attend the Lindau Nobel Laureate
Meeting and visit famous German laboratories, broadening
their scientific horizon. In 2008, the Center launched a newprogramme to support excellent young German scientists
to visit and work in China for a short term. These programmes will lay a sound foundation for the sustainable
development of future Sino-German cooperation.
With the support of the NSFC, the DFG and the SinoGerman Center, Chinese and German scientists have maderemarkable achievements in their collaboration on an
equal, complementary and mutual beneficial basis. For
example, research conducted by the Institute of Tibetan
Plateau Research, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, andthe University of Göttingen, Germany, made a breakthrough in understanding the geodynamics and environmental change of the Tibetan Plateau. A Collaborative
Research Unit by the Hamburg Observatory, the Heidelberg
State Observatory and the Chinese National Astronomical
Observatories systematically studied the ultra-metal-poorstars in the Milky Way galaxy and their chemical evolution,and their findings contributed to the progress of the­LAMOST spectroscopic survey plan. Professor Zhu Maoyan
from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology
has been collaborating with his German partners since
2000. He discovered the earliest animal embryo fossils on
Earth and redated the origin of animals from 580 million
years ago to 630 million years ago. The finding was published in Nature and listed as one of the Top Ten News of2007 in Basic Research and of the Top Ten News of 2007
in Scientific Progress in China.

EssayA DFG Special Edition

As mentioned above, we can see that the Sino-German
cooperation is mutually beneficial and creates a win-win
dynamic. The ten-year journey of the Sino-German Center has been a decade of rapid development supported by
the NSFC and the DFG, and of strengthening cooperationand friendship between Chinese and German scientists.
The negative impact of the global financial crisis is still
lingering. It will be a wise choice to promote frontier research, seize the opportunity of a new scientific revolution,and maintain a sustainable development of economy andsociety.
Pursuing a better development in the future, the NSFC
has declared its strategic policy of “emphasising more on
basic science, more on frontier research and more on talenttraining”, with the objectives of strengthening strategicplanning, reinforcing the foundation of the scientific disciplines, driving frontier research, and intensifying thetraining of innovative talents so as to raise the overall

Promising outlookTo enhance and deepen Sino-German cooperation isalways an important component of the NSFC’s international cooperation strategy. Here I would like to makefour suggestions. First, we should continue to support substantial joint research. Based on the development strategy
of different disciplines and priority areas, both sides should
encourage scientists to carry out substantial cooperationin frontier areas. Second, we should continue to explore
new forms of joint funding, and gradually optimise theway we manage joint reviews and performance evaluations. Third, we should make efforts to create a favourable
environment for international cooperation and exchange,
make full use of the framework provided by the bilateralagreement and the platform of the Sino-German Center,
support Chinese and German scientists – especially theearly-career researchers – to participate in and organise
cooperation and exchange activities, and encourage andsupport long-term and sustainable cooperative networks
between outstanding Chinese and German scientists andresearch groups in frontier areas and basic disciplines.
Fourth, we should strengthen the strategic dialogue between the funding organisations of the two countries aswell as broaden and deepen our exchange on policy andmanagement, in order to play a greater role in Sino-German, Sino-European and international scientific cooperation.

DFG

quality of basic research. An open and innovative international environment is becoming increasingly crucial forbasic research. To accommodate this trend, we need tofurther promote international cooperation and exchange,
upgrade strategic cooperation, and encourage scientists tocarry out substantial joint research in order to advancescience together.

DFG President Matthias Kleiner and Chen Yiyu in Beijing

The ancient Chinese Book of Poems says, “A bird singsout to draw a friend’s response”. Chinese scientists wish
to work with all peace-loving researchers in the world andbuild deep friendship in cooperation. The great German
poet Goethe said that friendship can only be bred in practice and be maintained by practice. I firmly believe that,as Sino-German cooperation expands in scope, the practiceof cooperation and exchange will become richer and moreabundant. It will enhance the friendship and bond between our two countries. I also believe that by strengthening the scientific and technological exchange between
China and Germany as well as other countries in theworld, and by encouraging Chinese, German and othercountries’ scientists to work together for innovation, we
will make greater contributions to the repository of scientific thoughts and knowledge, to communication and exchange between different cultures, to the world’s economic
and social development, and to the progress of humancivilisation.
Professor Dr. Chen Yiyu
President of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)

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18

Astronomy

A DFG Special Edition

Ancestors of the Sun
A new kind of telescope at the Xinglong Observatory near Beijing promises to provide
astronomers with new insights into the development of the Milky Way.

If there is one thing a researcher
like Norbert Christlieb needs, it’spatience. The professor at the
Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg (ZAH) performs “gal­actic archaeology”: that is, he searches
the night sky for the oldest stars, thosewitnesses to the galaxy’s earliest childhood. They are the progenitors of thematerials to which, ultimately, theEarth and the human race owe their
existence. Cosmic microwave background radiation, which was formed
380,000 years after the Big Bang, enables the deepest insights into the cosmic past; after this, however, a dark
era descended, one that was illuminated only by the light of the firststars. In order to discover ancient ancestors of the stars, however, astronomers do not need to look into thefarthest reaches of space, as there area few survivors of the early generations very close by – by astronomical
standards – in our Milky Way. Pinpointing such a Methuselah among
millions of stars in a section of theheavens is, says Christlieb, “like looking for the metaphorical needle in ahaystack.”
The astronomer was, therefore,
electrified, when, several years ago,he heard of the LAMOST project­being carried out at the Chinese­Xinglong Station, an observatory
north-east of Beijing. LAMOST, the“Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber
Spectroscopic Telescope”, is a telescope that is unique in the world. It
will soon begin systematically scanning large tracts of the heavens andcapturing even the weak light of distant objects – and doing so faster andmore efficiently than any other telescope can. “I knew immediately that

I had to be a part of this”, Christlieb
remembers. In Professor Zhao Gang,
deputy director of the National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, he instantly foundan ally. The researcher does not justoversee international relationships;
instead, he has also devoted his working life to galactic chemical evolution
and the ancient stars.
Between 2005 and 2008, a cooperation group funded by the SinoGerman Center under the aegis of the

The older a star is,
the fewer “metals”
it contains.
two researchers worked to optimise
preparations for LAMOST’s search forthe oldest relics of the Milky Way.

T

he approximate age of a star canbe determined by the amount of
the heavy elements occurring in its
composition. As, shortly after the Big
Bang, only hydrogen and helium,
plus traces of lithium, existed, thesewere the substances that clumped together to form the first stars. Throughnuclear fusion, which causes heavenly bodies to radiate, heavier elements, right through to iron, were
gradually created. Once a gas giant
has exhausted its energy supply, it becomes instable and explodes as a supernova; during these monumental
events, neutrons are added to the already existing elements to generate
the even heavier elements of the periodic table. Hurled into space, these
become midwives to new generationsof stars. In contrast to common par-lance, astronomers use the term “metals” to refer to all elements heavier
than hydrogen and helium. The fewer
metals found in a particular star, theolder it must be.
Our sun is rich in metals, and has
an iron/hydrogen ratio of 1 to 31,000.
At 4.6 billion years old, it is in the
middle of its lifespan and belongs towhat is known as the Population I
group of younger stars. Older stars,
which contain fewer metals, are examples of Population II stars. These
are found mainly in the Milky Way’s
halo. The first Population III stars
were probably formed several hundred million years after the Big Bang.
Until now it has been impossible toidentify any of these, and experts assume that they were so massive thatthey burned through their nuclear
energy reservoir in just a few million
years, finally exploding as supernovae. In 2002, Christlieb, who was in
Hamburg at the time, caused a sensation when he and his team discovereda low-mass star in the Phoenix constellation that contained just one
200,000th of the metal in our Sun. A
short while later, another ancient star
was added which, with one 250,000thof the Sun’s iron value, is a few million years older still. These are theoldest stars hitherto discovered and,having been classified as “hyper
metal-poor”, are in seventh place ona scale of eight levels of metal content. The Sun is in second place.
The astronomers detected thesetwo cosmic ancestors after a scan ofhalf of the southern sky performed by
the Hamburg Observatory using the
1-metre Schmidt Telescope at the European Southern Observatory (ESO)in Chile. An upstream objective prism

Astronomy

A DFG Special Edition

scopes over several months. “The concept is revolutionary”, says Christlieb.
“It is exactly what we need.”T

he forthcoming LAMOST survey
will take five years. The work
performed by the Chinese-German
cooperation group in preparation forthis search for metal-poor stars was,by its very nature, a project for the
future. But because the partnershipwas “so harmonious and fruitful”,
Christlieb says, it didn’t just stop
when the funding ran out. “Intercultural collaborations force people toreconsider their own values and behaviours, and I think that is a goodthing.” Two of Zhao Gang’s doctoral
students are currently performing
research in Christlieb’s group in Heidelberg. Ren Jing wants to identify
stars that have been enrichedthrough supernovae with high-massancestors. Li Haining was involved in
the planning of the LAMOST survey
and has worked out an input catalogue that provides the coordinatesof the stars. This is Ren’s first time
abroad. “I was nervous,” she explains, “but it was very easy to find
my way around here.” And Li particularly prizes “the opportunity to
exchange ideas with researchers
from different countries.” Bothwould like to be involved in future
Chinese-German collaboration projects.

Astronomers hope that LAMOST
will detect additional metal-poorstars, which will also shed some lighton the current record holders. Their
unusually high proportions of carbon
and nitrogen are still a mystery to astronomers. Did the two stars create
these elements themselves throughnuclear reactions and transport themto the surface? Did they originate
from a higher-mass companion, ordid, perhaps, the two stars inherit
them from an ancestor that exploded
in a supernova? What was the role ofdust in the formation of the ancientstars? “If we can use LAMOST to identify even more hyper metal-poorstars, we will probably find the answers to these questions”, says Christlieb. Even if the stars to be identified
do not belong to the first generation,
the chemical fingerprint left by the
first supernovae will still provide us
with clues on the properties of thefirst generation of stars. The veil over
the origin of the chemical elements
and our Galaxy would be lifted a little
further.
Marion Kälke

LAMOST combines a 4-metre mirror and a
5-degree wide field of view with multiplex
spectroscopy. The spectra of 4000 objects
can be captured at a time, enabling large
areas of the sky to be efficiently scannedin a short time. LAMOST will be able tolook beyond our galaxy, register redshifts
and detect quasars. And it will help us tounderstand the formation and chemical
evolution of the Milky Way – by means of,for example, identifying metal-poor stars.

Dr. Chenzhou Cui, National Astronomical­Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences

split the stars’ light into its spectral
colours, enabling the photographic
plate to provide the first clues to theirchemical makeup. Christlieb had developed software that was automatically able to filter metal-poor candidates from the vast multitude. In
doing so, he based his calculations on
the most obvious line, one of calcium.
He then inferred from the strength ofthat line the abundance of iron. If
faint lines, or no lines, of calcium absorption are detected, the star contains very little iron. Due to the limited quality of the data recorded, an
additional step was needed. The astronomers observed the selected objects again, at a somewhat higher
resolution, before the valuable timeat 8-10 metre class telescopes was invested to obtain high-resolution spectra. Then, for the first time, the natureof the two ancient stars was definitively revealed.
LAMOST is able to simplify thiscomplex procedure considerably. It
has a 4-metre main mirror and covers
a 5-degree wide field of view, equivalent to the diameter of ten full moons
arranged in a row. It can also carry out
relatively high-resolution spectroscopy during the survey, measuring
4,000 objects at a time. During a
90-minute exposure, more spectra aregathered than with conventional tele-19Economics

A DFG Special Edition

Negotiating Negotiation
The Sino-German Center supports early-career researchers in summer schools.

W

hat drives our economic
decisions? Calculation?
Emotion? Tradition or cultural background? What is the decisive factor? “If you follow neoclassicaleconomic theory, this question doesn’t
even arise,” says Professor Reinhard
Selten, founder of the Laboratory for
Experimental Economics at the University of Bonn (BonnEconLab), who
was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize in
Economics (along with Hungarian
John Harsanyi and American John
Nash) for his pioneering work on
game theory. According to the prevailing school of thought, agents inthe market behave totally rationallyand make decisions to maximise theirindividual utility. In doing this — neoclassical theory assumes — they are
motivated by purely material incentives only.
Mathematician and economist
Selten had doubts about this early on.

He disliked the belief in the economic
decision maker’s unlimited ability toreason and calculate, along with theneglect of emotional factors. He wasconvinced that optimisation of expected utility or of long-term profit
were no suitable starting points fortheory formation; they should be replaced by behavioural approaches.
Therefore, Selten dedicated much of
his scientific effort to developing a
new discipline, experimental economics, of which he is considered oneof the founders. “In cleverly and skilfully designed experiments, we areable to collect data based on real decisions,” he says. “We can precisely
analyse experimental subjects’ behaviour in economically relevant situations. And with the findings fromthese controlled experiments we can
support economic theories — or refute them,” adds Heike HennigSchmidt, Head of BonnEconLab.

With financial support of the SinoGerman Center and in collaboration
with Sichuan University and Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu,
Heike Hennig-Schmidt has organised
three Chinese-German summer
schools since 2006, two in China andone in Germany. Doctoral researchers
and young economists from bothcountries were invited to experience
what experimental economic research
can do. In groups composed either
intracultural (Chinese-Chinese or
German-German) or intercultural(Chinese-German), participants spend
the first day negotiating as hard as
they can. The summer-school negotiators try to close business deals, andlike in real life, they follow strategic
considerations and employ tactics tohave the other party accept their own
goals. Later on in the summer school,
participants take part in many otherexperiments. And finally, the groups

Young researchers from Germany and China can gain intercultural practice during the Sino-German summer schools. And they canexperience what experimental economics can do.
Chaoliang Yang

20

Economics

A DFG Special Edition

engage in self-reflection, present theirresults, and incorporate their experience into existing theories. Data collection — which also includes video
recordings — and data analysis are
discussed with their teachers.

A

nalysing the text protocols of thenegotiations from the Sino-German summer schools, HennigSchmidt and her German and Chinesecolleagues discovered between the
behavioural characteristics of the Chinese versus German participants some
important differences, which both

alities, but from different points ofview. The Chinese always made it apriority to develop friendly relations
and seemed to regard the actual negotiation as secondary. This was perfectly in line with the expectations
both sides had of each other. The Germans, on the other hand, wanted tokeep business and private life separate, which became an issue when
this principle was disregarded, leading
to discord and stagnation during thenegotiations.
Also when it came to coping withconflict, important differences“When negotiating you have to consider
the cultural background.”support and expand on findings described in the literature. “One potential source of conflict in interculturalbargaining is the different willingnessof Germans and Chinese to adjust
their demands downward,” says Hennig-Schmidt, adding that this willingness is essential to successfully closing
a deal. While the German participants
in intracultural experiments continually adjust their bargaining goals, negotiations between Chinese are characterised by long periods of stagnation.
“In direct negotiations, this kind of
behaviour increases the Germans’ disposition to break off the negotiation
because they’re not willing to accept
long periods without concessions.”
In intracultural negotiations ofGermans with Germans or Chinesewith Chinese, negotiators always
showed great confidence, were awareof their respective cultural norms, andmade decisions based on strategy
rather than on cultural considerations. “Generally speaking, Chinese
negotiations are a lot more calm andrelaxed than Germans are,” says Hennig-Schmidt. “Quite obviously it’s not
as important in China how quickly
you come to an agreement.”
Another observation from thesummer-school negotiations: The relationship between the bargaining
parties was addressed by both nation-

emerged between intracultural bargaining groups. Whereas the Chinese
would strive to maintain harmony,
German negotiators took a more orless confrontational approach. Different from the Chinese, they were more
direct when they bargained among
themselves, always ready to clearly
articulate their opinions. “For example, when the Germans engaged in
intracultural negotiations, anythingthat violated their own cultural norms
would immediately be noticed anddiscussed, and had a negative impact
on the counterpart’s mood and reaction,” reports Hennig-Schmidt.

T

he intercultural negotiations playedout quite differently. “Both Chineseand Germans made concessions andput aside their own culturally conditioned behavioural patterns,” notes
Hennig-Schmidt. Still, there are factorsof conflict. Germans don’t always understand the Chinese desire for harmony, “and then the Germans get impatient.” It was also interesting thatboth sides plan their future steps very
precisely but for different reasons. “The
Chinese want to avoid risk or uncertainty. The Germans use precise planning to stay on schedule; they want to
use their time efficiently.”
A big difference between German
and Chinese negotiators was also seenin their respective backward and forward orientation. The Chinese side
kept emphasising what has alreadybeen accomplished, summarised thenegotiated outcome so far, and previewed objectives yet to be negotiated. The Germans, on the other
hand, were primarily concerned withdirect, goal-oriented, fact-based andtime-efficient negotiation. “Keypoints are brought up right at the beginning, and the tactics employed by
the Chinese are perceived as dilatory,”says Hennig-Schmidt. The Chinese,on the other hand, pursue an indirect
strategy and are process-oriented intheir negotiation. They are especiallyconcerned with the personal characteristics of the other party. It is thecounterpart that takes precedence
over the object of negotiation.

Reinhard Selten has himself been
trapped by German-Chinese intercultural pitfalls. “The applicationof a joint research proposal made itnecessary that our partners in China
answered some questions. But wenever received a reply even after wefollowed up,” remembers Selten. It
took him a while to realise that the
Chinese partners were not able to answer these questions. As is Chinese
custom in such situations, they chose
not to respond in order not to offend
the German partner with their ignorance and to avoid losing face. “So it’sreally a step forward when we bring
together German and Chinese economists in our summer schools. And
with the topics we offer, both sides
learn two things — first, when negotiating you have to take your partner’s cultural background into account; and second, experimental
economics can help solve these kindof problems.”Dieter Beste

Hennig-Schmidt, H., H. Geng, M. Reintgen, G. Walkowitz, and Ch. Yang (2009).
Strategien in interkulturellen Verhandlungssituationen: Ein Vergleich zwischen
Deutschland und China. Working paper,
University of Bonn

21

22

Interview

A DFG Special Edition“A Unique Place”
Interview with Dorothee Dzwonnek: For the Secretary General of the DFG, the setup of
the SGC as a joint venture guarantees stability and successful cooperation.

D

orothee Dzwonnek’s first encounter with the Sino-German Center for Research Promotion (SGC) occurred long
before she became officially responsible for it in her capacity as Secretary General of the DFG. In mid-2001, as thehead of a department in the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Science and Research, she visited universities andresearch institutions in China. The SGC in Beijing was just establishing the first contacts between researchers in bothcountries, and universities in North Rhine-Westphalia had just launched the first graduate schools in the natural andengineering sciences. Spontaneously the idea came up of recruiting young Chinese scientists to do their doctorates in
the Rhine and Ruhr region. These new ways to inform and network appealed to her immediately, remembers ­Dzwonnek.
Today, as a member of the DFG Executive Board and leader of the Head Office, she appreciates the Center especiallyfor its organisational form.

Ms. Dzwonnek, assuming you had been
the DFG’s Secretary General ten years
ago – would you have established the
Sino-German Center?
Dorothee Dzwonnek: Of course it’sdifficult to say today whether I would
have had such a great idea back then.
But I certainly hope so. Either way, theDFG President at the time, Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, and all those who wereinvolved recognised very early on thepotential of China’s scientific community and showed excellent judgement.
What’s special about this centre is its
setup as a joint venture. Why was it established this way?
This legal and organisational form
offers major advantages over otherforms, such a liaison office that you
open in another country, which iskind of like grafting a tree. This close
cooperation between equal partners
in the form of a joint venture has been
the basis and the guarantor of stable
collaboration and of increasingly productive scientific cooperation. Thisstability is what makes the Center aunique place.
So why hasn’t the DFG set up such centres elsewhere? For example, in Washington – why not a joint venture with
the National Science Foundation insteadof a DFG liaison office?

Because in the US and elsewhere
there just hasn’t been the opportunity for this kind of close cooperation, which also requires investments. And admittedly the initialsituation was different too. Between
American and German researchers
there has been an enormous amountof cooperation for a long time. The
research community in the US ismuch larger than in Germany. Thiskind of environment makes us think
differently about a joint centre forresearch promotion than China,
where ten years ago it was all about
making initial contacts and opening
up Chinese research.
Opening up also in terms of research policy and of politics?
We need to cautious when we
make judgements from over here.
But this was certainly part of what
motivated the Chinese side, and it is
my sense that things have indeed begun to move. The research policy andalso the political framework in China
was even more restrictive ten years
ago than it is today. The SGC has
definitely contributed to an opening
here. After all, any cooperation thatinvolves the Center and German
partners is also cooperation with ademocratic state and research system.

Moving on from research policy to everyday research support: What does thiscentre, 7,000 kilometres away, mean for
the work of the DFG and its Head Officein Bonn?
Most of all, it’s a great help. The
Center is really well implemented
and acts very independently. What’s
important is not only that it has its
own funding budget, but also that
there’s been great continuity of leadership and staff on both sides. We canabsolutely trust them to do goodwork that is consistent with the intentions of the DFG. And especiallywhen it comes to everyday funding
activities, we have relatively little
work to do over here for the Chinese
market.
But it’s a huge market, and the Center isrelatively small. Shouldn’t it be larger
and better equipped?
The equipment has been decided
together with our Chinese partners
and can only be changed consensually. But it is true – the Center isn’t allthat big; staff workload is high and has
actually gone up over these ten years
due to increased responsibilities andhigher expectations.
Which of these very diverse responsibilities and high expectations have been met– and which, if any, have not?

Interview

DFG

A DFG Special Edition

Dorothee Dzwonnek with Hao Ping, Vice Minister of the Chinese Ministry of Education, during a visit in Beijing.

All the expectations have definitely
been met. But the emphases may
have shifted over time. In the beginning it was all about opening doors,even more so for the Chinese sidethan for us. That’s where the Centerhas made a big difference as a meeting
place and platform. In the meantime,other things have become more important, especially for the Chinese
researchers – for example, what theCenter does to facilitate the administrative aspect of cooperation. Of
growing importance, obviously, is collaboration in the DFG’s coordinatedprogrammes – in German-Chinese
Collaborative Research Centres andTransregios, in International ResearchTraining Groups, and most recently inthe joint calls announced by the NSFC
and the DFG ...
... which just got off the ground withjoint projects on stem cell research ...
Yes, and off to a very good start –just like in water research, where
we’ve been able to respond to a current need, especially in China.

On the Chinese side, many of these collaborations involve universities and scientists based in Beijing and Shanghai.
Shouldn’t these joint projects, and therefore the Sino-German Centre, be geared
more strongly toward China in its entirety?
Going forward, it will indeed be
one of our important tasks to reachout to China on an even broader basis.
There have been some recent accomplishments in this area, for example
through Internet communication. But
more could be done.

identified, in our 2009 strategy conference, the areas where Chinese andGerman scientists can collaborate
quickly yet at a high level – such as
geophysics, but also environment
and nutrition, infectious diseases andenergy research. And as for funding
formats, we’ll definitely be launching
more multilateral initiatives, as weare doing right now with the first cooperation between China, Germany
and Finland in mathematics. But
with all that, the Center should remain flexible.

Looking ahead: When the Center celebrated its tenth anniversary in Beijing
last October, it’s also about the next ten
years. What will the coming decadelook like?
The Center will definitely remain aguarantor for great stability in SinoGerman cooperation ...

Which means what, specifically?
The most important thing will beto keep our ears open to the needs ofresearchers in China and Germany,and then to have the flexibility andstrength to act accordingly. In otherwords, to stay in flux. I’m convincedthat much of the potential of SinoGerman partnership has yet to betapped, especially when it comes toscience and research.

... that sounds almost like stagnation ...
No, this has been and will continue to be the foundation for everything else. As for topics, we haveInterview: Marco Finetti

23

Environmental Research

A DFG Special Edition

20 Million Sheep
Grazing the Steppes
On the grasslands of Inner Mongolia a Chinese-German interdisciplinary Research Unitis taking a closer look at the ecological impacts of overgrazing.

E

ach year in spring the city ofBeijing is shrouded in a cloud ofyellow dust. Images of snarling
traffic and pedestrians wearing respiration masks as they go about theirbusiness in the dimly lit city have become a regular media fixture. The
storms are a visible symptom of thegrave ecological changes underway innorthern China and Mongolia. The
dust storms originate there in the
Takla Makan and Gobi deserts. In Inner Mongolia the Gobi desert merges
with a landscape of rolling grasslands.
Stretching across 90 million hectares,
the grasslands were once nourishedby fertile sediments carried by thewind, creating a lush and verdantlandscape. But overgrazing by sheep
has left the grasslands degraded andtrampled underfoot. The surface has
been stripped almost bare, and the
few remaining centimetres of grasshave an ineffective “roughness
length”. The result: the grass is no longer able to trap the fertile wind-borne
particles. Instead, the sediments arecarried away by the wind together

with the grassland’s upper soil layer.
Particularly fierce storms have been
known to carry the dust as far as Korea and Japan, leaving behind impoverished soils that now extend acrossalmost three quarters of the total
grassland area. In some areas thedamage has led to desertification.
With its harsh climate, the grassland is an extremely sensitive ecosystem: temperatures can range from–40° in winter through to 33° in thebrief Mongolian summer. Most of theannual rainfall of just 200 to 340 mm
takes place between June and August;the distribution of these sporadic convective downpours can vary acrosssmall distances, and a significant
amount of water is lost due to transpiration and evaporation. “Wewanted to understand the changes
that are occurring in this vulnerable
ecosystem”, explains Professor Klaus
Butterbach-Bahl, a researcher at theInstitute for Meteorology and Climate
Research at Karlsruhe Institute forTechnology and the spokesperson for
the DFG-Research Unit “Matter fluxes

in Grasslands of Inner Mongolia as
influenced by stocking rate”(MAGIM). Grasslands, which cover
10,000,000 km² and account for 20%of the Earth’s surface, are important
ecosystems: healthy grasslands protect against soil erosion and regulate
the concentration of greenhouse gases
in our atmosphere by storing a significant proportion of the global carbon and nitrogen reserves. Ensuringthat grasslands remain intact not only
safeguards the fertility of their soils
and the economic well-being of their
inhabitants, it is an important contribution to global climate stability.
The research project has attracted
strong interest from both Chinese andGerman researchers. Long-standingties existed between some of the­researchers involved, such as Butterbach-Bahl and Professor Zheng­Xunhua from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. With the support of
the Sino-German Center, the two initiated an exploratory meeting which
led to the establishment of the

Dr. Carsten Hoffmann, Centre for Agricultural Landscape and Land Use Research, Müncheberg

24

Environmental Research

A DFG Special Edition

MAGIM Research Unit in 2004. In aseries of eleven interlinking projects,
Chinese and German research partners studied erosion, and the material
flows between the bio- and atmosphere of water, carbon and nitrogen
within the soil-plant system. With theencouragement of Butterbach-Bahl,
who spent time in China as a student,
the project saw a number of German
doctoral researchers working for up
to nine months in China, creating
lasting friendships and strong working
partnerships between the research
partners.

B

ut what are the underlying causesof overgrazing in Inner Mongolia?
In the 1950s and 1960s, the nomadsof the northern Chinese steppes, who
had practised sustainable grazing on
the grasslands for centuries, wereforced to settle in small villages or on
farms. The region’s population grew
as Han Chinese from other provinces
were resettled in northern China. Following market reforms in the 1980s,
people were allowed to produce meat
and wool for profit, further compounding the pressure on this ecosystem. “Livestock levels have risen from
2 to 20 million head within just 60
years”, explains Butterbach-Bahl.
The research area extended acrossthe Xilin River Basin, where conditions are typical of those encounteredthroughout the semi-arid grasslandsof China. The Basin is also home tothe “Inner Mongolia Grassland Experimental Station (IMGERS)” of theInstitute of Botany at the Chinese
Academy of Sciences, where the international research team took acloser look at the damage caused byovergrazing. The upper soil layer iseroded by both wind and water.
Sheep moving across the groundcauses further stress by compacting
the soil and impairing its mechanicalstability. The effect: what little rainwater there is runs off the land rather
than soaking into it, evaporating anderoding the upper soil layer in theprocess.
In depriving plants of vital moisture and nutrients, wind and watererosion has a severe and detrimental
impact on soil fertility. The researchers discovered lower levels of biomass
both above and below the surface on

Erosion caused
by wind and water
intensively grazed land. Overgrazing
results in less feed per head of livestock and impairs the flow of atmospheric trace gases, including bothcarbon and nitrogen (and hence carbon dioxide (CO2)), methane (CH4)and nitrous oxide (N2O), commonly
known as laughing gas.
Decaying plant biomass is the mostimportant source of soil nutrients on
the grasslands, and helps vegetation
to endure periods of drought andadapt rapidly to improved conditions.
Plant litter mineralisation also drives
flows of carbon and nitrogen throughout the soil system. Particles formed
from dead plants adhere to soil particles, forming an aggregate that temporarily stores away organic material
which would otherwise be broken
down by microbes. As these clumps
decay the organic material is released
into the soil and broken down. Reductions in biomass levels equate toless litter, which impacts negatively
on soil aggregate stability. Instead of
nourishing the grasslands, the fineparticles of organic matter are literally
blown away. “The weaker the aggregate stability, the stronger the erosion”, explains Butterbach-Bahl. Thischange in the ecosystem is transforming the grasslands, once a net carbon
sink, into a net carbon source.
Healthy soils are porous. Minutecavities within soil allow plant roots
to expand and transport both waterand air. Soil bacteria oxidises approximately 10-15% of all atmosphericmethane, and well ventilated soils
play a significant role in the global
atmospheric CH4 budget. Soils, in particular dry grassland soils, are an important net sink of this greenhousegas. But the soil’s ability to conductgases is severely diminished if its po-

An ultra-light aircraft from the German Institute for Meteorology and Climate Researchtakes off at the IMGERS research station. The ultra-light aircraft is used to measureregional patterns in water and carbon dioxide flows, turbulence and radiation levels,
complementing localised data collected by monitoring stations at ground level.

Stefan Metzger, Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research,­Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Dust storms are a common sight in Inner
Mongolia. Sheep strip the grasslands bareand compact the soil, leading to increased
wind erosion. The result: degraded grasslands and desertification. Grassland degradation has flow-on effects for global CO2
levels. A reduction in biomass levels inhibits the formation of aggregates, particles
which normally bind organic material. Carbon particles, lighter than their mineralcounterparts, are simply blown away by
the wind.

25

Environmental Researchrous structure is compacted by grazing
sheep. “Overgrazing reduces methane
absorption by 50 to 60%”, explains
Butterbach-Bahl.
Researchers were astonished when
they took a closer look at the emission
rate of nitrous oxide. Laughing gas attacks the stratospheric ozone layer andaccounts for approximately 5% of theoverall additional greenhouse effect;
the lion’s share of nitrous oxide emissions originates in agriculture, in particular from fertilisers and livestock.
Clearly, the world’s grasslands have an
important role to play. “Nobody had
bothered to track the rate of emissions
across an entire year until now, however”, notes Butterbach-Bahl. Filling
this gap in the research, ButterbachBahl and his colleagues discovered that
80% of all emissions originating within
the research area occurred on ungrazed land in the spring.
Micro-organisms react adversely tocold temperatures, and the harshgrassland winter inhibits their activities. The rough texture of the natural
grasses retains both sediments andsnow, creating an insulating layer ofsnow and mild soil temperatures
which enable microbial populations to

A DFG Special Edition

survive the winter relatively intact.
Surviving soil bacteria become active
as soon as temperatures begin to riseagain with the thaw in March, metabolising nitrogen and releasing
laughing gas. According to the findingsof Butterbach-Bahl’s task force, while
N2O outputs also increase on grazing
pastures, they are significantly higher
on ungrazed land. “The report of the
UN Climate Council IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)
overestimated the levels of livestock

have outsiders telling them what todo”, explains Butterbach-Bahl. Convincing farmers of the advantages ofsofter and more sustainable grazing
practices is not an easy task. As the
director of the IMGERS research station, Professor Han Xingguo, explained, 86% of the 40 million people
inhabiting the North Chinese grasslands live in poverty.
People primarily concerned withsatisfying their immediate needs areoften unwilling to heed warnings ofWorld Climate Council estimates onlaughing gas emissions flawed.
emissions on unfertilised semi-arid
grasslands by approximately 70 %”,concludes the scientist.

In spite of these findings, the damage
caused by large numbers of sheep
grazing on the grasslands remains a
problem for which the researchers
would like to find solutions. “The focus of this project was on scientificfact-finding, and while the Chinese
government is keen to develop sustainable practices, they don’t like to

Research conducted in Inner Mongolia demonstrates that overgrazing impairs soil fertility:
the control plot at left is home to 9 sheep per hectare, while just 1.5 sheep are grazed
per hectare on the right. The damage caused by overgrazing is not limited to the ecosystem; farmers suffer when their undernourished sheep lose weight.

Prof. Dr. Andreas Susenbeth, Institute of Animal Nutrition
and Metabolic Physiology, Kiel

26

the ecological costs of their actions.
Even warnings that intensive grazing
will lead to undernourished livestock
and poorer returns fall on deaf ears.
In the absence of alternatives, local
populations use livestock droppings,
which emit all three greenhouse gases
when burnt, as fuel rather than leaving it to fertilise the grasslands; aseemingly intractable problem about
which Han is particularly concerned,
says Butterbach-Bahl. The MAGIM
researchers were especially pleased
when they received the go-ahead for
a 200-hectare grazing experiment.
Begun in 2005, the experiment has
been continued beyond its funding
period by the Chinese research partners. The experiment is as simple as it
is ingenious. To study the effects ofvarious levels of grazing intensity the
research area is divided into six areas;
sheep graze on half of the plots for six
months, while the remaining plots areleft fallow to grow hay for the winter.
The system is then reversed in the following year. The data collected in thisrotational grazing experiment enables
researchers to calculate the criticalnumber of livestock head per hectare,which can vary from year to year depending on the meteorological conditions. Researchers hope that the results will strengthen the case for the
introduction of more sustainable pasture management practices.
Marion Kälke

Microelectronics

A DFG Special Edition

Copper Rain
A German-Chinese Research Training Group explores materials and concepts foradvanced metallisation systems in microelectronics.

at structure sizes less than 30 nanometres that have been attained overthe course of miniaturisation. With
this method, copper atoms are simply“showered” onto the wafer surface
using, for instance,a sputtering process.
“In my doctoral
research, I therefore further developed the atomic
layer deposition method and made it
suitable for the needs of copper metallisation in semiconductor manufac-

turing“, says Thomas Waechtler, whocompleted his doctorate following
three years of funding in the Research Training Group.
A patent application was then immediately filed for
Waechtler’s innovative approach. Unlike with traditional
coating processes inthenanometre
range, he is able touse his atomic layer deposition (ALD)
method to obtain very uniform copper deposits even on larger surfaces

From Training
Group to patentofficeFhG-IZM

The rapidly progressing miniaturisation in microelectronics
has made it possible to mount
up to a billion transistors on a chip.
Though the physical limits are far
from being reached here, researchers
working in the nano-cosmos must
develop increasingly refined technologies in order to further reduce thesize of these chips and make themeven faster. “Ultimately, it is a question of how to wire millions and millions of transistors on just a few
square centimetres in such a way thatthey interact with one another without error – and this is exactly where
the expertise in our Research Training
Group lies“, says Professor Thomas
Gessner from the Chemnitz University of Technology and director of the
Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic
Nano Systems ENAS. Gessner is the
spokesperson on the German side of
the International Research Training
Group 1215 “Materials and Concepts
for Advanced Interconnects“.
It was determined, for example,
that the conductive tracks between
the transistors in highly integrated
electronic circuits – which, in refined
metallisation processes, are mounted
on the chip – can no longer be madeof aluminium, as was possible just a
few years ago. This is because aluminium generates too much heat at
structure sizes less than 250 nanometres due to its comparatively highelectrical resistance. For this reason,
primarily copper has been used since
the mid 90s. However, this metal has
issues as well. The physical vapour
deposition process, which is the accepted method in the semiconductor
industry for this purpose, is expected
to no longer meet the requirements

As the wafers from semiconductor material for chip production continue to increase insize — several hundred microchips fit on this 300-mm wafer — the structures in the chips
themselves are becoming smaller and smaller. The reliable wiring of up to a billion transistors on a single chip is the subject of the International Research Training Group 1215.

27

Mikroelektronik

where the surface tension makes thethin copper layer prone to clumping
or in cases where the substrate is rutted with pits.

On the Chinese side, the International Research Training Group
is funded by the two universities inShanghai: Fudan University andShanghai Jiao Tong University. In
Germany, an important foothold in
addition to the Chemnitz Universityof Technology, is the recently established Fraunhofer ENAS, located at
the nearby Smart Systems Campus
Chemnitz. Also participating are the
TU Berlin and the Fraunhofer Institute of Reliability and Microintegration (IZM), which is situated at the TU
Berlin.
“When we founded the International Research Training Group four
years ago, we could already look backon years of cooperation with our colleagues in China”, Thomas Gessner
reports. “The Chinese spokesperson,
Professor Liu Ran, is extremely com-

A DFG Special Edition

mitted to the development of microelectronics in the Shanghai region. I
think that it is important for us here
in Germany to strategically strengthen
and further expand this link to oursimilarly strong microelectronic sector
here in Saxony with our ResearchTraining Group.” During the nowapproved second funding phase,
which runs until 2015, Gessner and
Liu would like to see the ResearchTraining Group place increased emphasis on nanotechnology, “the future

Research Training Group 1215 / Thomas Waechtler

28

technology”, as Gessner succinctly
notes.

And, to ensure that the German
and Chinese graduates do not
only learn with one another, but learn
from one another as well, research
visits in the respective foreign country
are mandatory during the course of
the three year doctoral programme. “I
put large parts of my doctoral dissertation to paper in Shanghai”, says
Thomas Waechtler, who learned agreat deal more from this experience
than if he had merely taken a shortholiday trip there. “The hierarchies
are different and take some time getting used to for us. And in daily research, quite a bit might seem chaotic
there for us Germans. But surprisingly, everything still works out in theend.”Dieter Beste

Using the ALD process, uniform copper
metallisation is possible, even on a threedimensional chip surface.

Deceitful Reflections
Met and locked into their hearts: Researchers from Cologne and Chengdu develop highly
selective metal-free catalysts.

T

he professors Albrecht Berkesselof the University of Cologne andChen Yingchun of Sichuan University in Chengdu, Western China,
first met at the beginning of April
2006 at a conference in Hangzhou on
the east coast of China. The SinoGerman Center had invited scientists
from Germany and China to a bilateral symposium on organocatalysis
and aspects of “green chemistry“. “I
started talking to Yingchun and wesoon realised that we were working
on similar issues,“ says Albrecht Berkessel.

Although Justus von Liebig discovered that acetaldehyde could be used
as an organic catalyst in the mid 19th
century and the first asymmetric organocatalytic reactions were describedat the beginning of the 20th century,organocatalysis has only become thefocus of worldwide research interestin the last ten years. The fact that in2001 the Nobel Prize for Chemistry
was awarded to the Japanese Ryoji
Noyori and the two Americans William S. Knowles and K. Barry Sharpless certainly contributed to this newawareness. They had managed to de-velop enantioselective transition
metal catalysts that are capable ofcontrolling chemical reactions in a
way that only the one of the two mirror-symmetric molecules of the end
product is formed. As is generally
known, many molecules occur in two
mirror-inverted forms. This chirality
in the structure of otherwise identicalproducts – they have the same chemical formula and the same number ofatoms and are linked together in thesame way – shows its downsides especially in the development of pharmaceuticals. While the one form de-Nanoscience

Ka Yann / fotolia

A DFG Special Edition

Identical mirror image. Chiral molecules are as alike as two hands. In medicine, however, their differing effects have their downsides.
With organocatalysts, reactions can be controlled enantioselectively, which guarantees that only one or the other form occurs.

velops its beneficial medicinal effects
in the body, the other is often downright harmful.
With the help of catalysts, chemical
reactions can be accelerated and controlled. The remarkable thing is thatthe catalyst is involved in the reaction
but not consumed. A single moleculecan thus produce millions of molecules of the desired form. “In addition
to metal catalysts, as developed by theNobel Prize winners of 2001, and biocatalysts such as enzymes, organocatalysis can now be regarded as thethird pillar of asymmetric catalysis,”says Albrecht Berkessel. For this, heand his colleague scientists fromaround the world use small, organic
molecules, which are mostly composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen,nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus atoms, “for example amino acids suchas proline or phenylalanine.” The decisive advantage of organocatalysts
over the large number of metal-based
catalysts known today is not only

their good commercial availability andthus relatively low cost, but also theirlower-level toxicity: “Because organocatalysts are usually non-toxic, easily
manufactured and disposed of, they
now trade under the label ’green
chemistry’ and are particularly suitable for the production of pharmaceuticals and also agrochemicals,” says
Berkessel.

While still in Hangzhou, Berkessel
met Chen to discuss their joint
research. It was soon clear to them
how they could successfully combine
their individual expertise in a mutually beneficial way: “Here in Cologne
we have, for example, in situ infrared
spectroscopy and also infrared thermography,” says Berkessel “in order
to measure the reaction kinetics directly.” A joint project application was
submitted to the Sino-German Centerand approved. Since February 2008,
a doctoral student of Chen Yingchun
together with chemists in Cologne

have been able to test some of the organocatalysts newly developed in
China at a high-throughput of possible reaction substances. “Conversely,
I was a visiting professor in Chengdu
where I gave lectures on selected topics of organocatalysis”, says Berkessel,
who has published an internationallyacclaimed reference book on the stateof affairs in organocatalysis together
with this colleague Harald Gröger.
“The book has also been translated
into Chinese,” says Berkessel with satisfaction who hopes to maintain contact with Chen Yingchun even after
the two-year project funding comesto an end. “I was particularly impressed by the commitment and discipline of the students in China. For
me as a lecturer, this really spurred
me on. It is therefore important to me
to help our people here at the instituteto experience the atmosphere there
so that they can perhaps gain a new
impetus for their work at home”.
Dieter Beste

29

30

Nanoscience

A DFG Special Edition

Wedding in the ­NanoCosmos
In the first Sino-German Collaborative Research Centre, researchers from Münster and
Beijing are fusing organic and inorganic materials into functional systems.

T

Zillmann

he approximately 0.6 micron
thick and 2 to 3 microns long,widespread rot bacterium Bacillus subtilis, also called hay bacillus, ismaking a teaching career in nanoscience and technology. “Natural systems give us clues as to how we can
combine organic and inorganic materials to form new functional molecular systems – Bacillus subtilis is ourmodel for molecular rotary motors,”says Harald Fuchs, director of the
Physics Institute of the University of
Münster and the Center for Nanotechnology (CeNTech ). Fuchs is theGerman speaker of the Sino-German
DFG Collaborative Research Centre
TRR 61 focusing on “Multi-level molecular assemblies: structure, dynamics and function“.

The constituents of a cell or organism organise themselves independently into hierarchical structures.
But also in the world of inorganic materials researchers have been able tosynthesise self-organising systems inrecent years. Although these assemblies are still much simpler than theirnatural counter-parts, these functional molecules can already performNanoscience

A DFG Special Edition

quite complicated tasks. In fact, researchers are becoming increasingly
more successful in encouraging small
molecules to self-organise into supramolecular systems and in discovering
the often surprising and unique properties that emerge in these assemblies
in analogy to natural systems as a result of multiple, collective interactions. The research in the field of selforganising molecular systems is also
stimulated by the observation that
their properties and behaviour emerge
in a completely unpredictable way.
The behaviour emerges without being
influenced from outside. And in general it cannot be derived from the
known properties of the individual
constituents or assemblies. Examples
include independent replication,
auto-repair or information-driven
processes, such as those observed inplant photosynthesis.
Fuchs points out that in contrast to
traditional synthesising chemistry, theemphasis in nanoscience and technology is less on being able “to make” aspecific molecule. The focus of the researcher is always on the new function – be it conductivity, light emission or sensory function. “Theadditional step we take compared to
traditional chemical synthesis has aname that has only been used as aconcept in biology so far: self-organisation.”
In a total of 20 joint research projects, Chinese and German scientists in
TRR 61 are researching the propertiesof molecular and nano objects. The
Chinese partners of the University of
Münster are the world renowned­Tsinghua University and the ChemicalInstitute of the Chinese Academy of
Sciences (CAS), both in Beijing. The
Collaborative Research Centre co-­financed by the DFG and its Chinese
partner organisation (NSFC), combines a total of approximately 150 scientists – half in Münster and half in
Lars Jansen and Wang Wenchong working
hand in hand in Münster while preparing atest with the ultra-high vacuum scanningtunnelling microscope.

Beijing. Their common goal is to produce molecular materials with tailoredelectronic, optical and sensory properties and to describe their particularorganisation and their collective behaviour in contrast to single molecules
or single molecular groups.
During the maximum project duration of twelve years, the scientists in
Beijing and Münster seek to takesmall steps towards their big goal toutilise the self-organising forces of nature for the assembly of bio-hybrid

Research goal
bio-hybrid systemsystems in which cells and inorganic
materials fuse into functional objects
in the nano-cosmos. Their first objective is to assemble functional molecules in dissolved state.
The next step is to connect thesesystems to solid substrates and to exploit the self-organisation potential ofthese structures to let them grow intolarger, more complex structures andfinally into hierarchically structured
bio-hybrid systems.
But imitating nature is not as easy
as it may sound: “So far, we haverarely been able to connect abiotic
materials with organisms without destroying them or altering their behaviour,” says Chi Lifeng, also a professor
at the Physics Institute of the University of Münster and deputy speaker of
TRR 61 for the German side. In addition, self-organisation processes andcoupling phenomena in large functional structures are still poorly understood from a theoretical point ofview. “Some of our research groups
are pioneering in this field,” says
Fuchs and lists the groups involved:
applied physics, biophysics, interface
physics, organic chemistry, physicalchemistry, theoretical and experimental physics, material physics and business chemistry. They deal with topics
such as dynamics at interfaces, nanoanalysis and nano-photonics.
For about 30 years, self-organisation and assembly formation havebeen on the agenda of nanoscience,“but we are still far from being able touse these processes routinely,” says
Fuchs, “because unlike natural selforganisation that takes place in anatural environment, we are generally only able to achieve this in the lab
under very special conditions.” “Selforganisation is a mechanism that creates patterns, processes and structures
on a higher level through multiple
interactions of the individual constituents on a lower level,” explains Chi.
The driving force behind this are usually weak attractive forces such as hydrogen bonds that have played nosignificant role in technical chemistry
so far. “It is difficult to control the finebalance between these weak interactions and dynamics of self-assembly,”says Fuchs.

Chi and Fuchs met almost twenty
years ago during a project on ultra
thin layers. At the time, the physicist
Fuchs was working in the researchdivision at BASF. Chi, after finishingher studies in chemistry in China andcompleting her Ph.D at the University
of Göttingen and the Max Planck Institute located there, joined the project while working as a postdoc at the
University of Mainz. When in 1993
vacancies in Boston, Seattle and Münster opened up for her, Fuchs was aprofessor in Münster and in the process of setting up a professorship for
nano-analysis and interface physics
and the Center for Nanotechnology.
The excellent working conditions associated with this were something Chi
found very tempting. “Actually, I
didn’t think I would stay that long inGermany.”
In 2000 – after several years of successful preparation work with various
Chinese partner groups – the official
go-ahead was given for closer cooperation with scientists in China: “At
the time, we assumed the coordination role of a cooperation in the areaof nanosciences between the State ofNorth Rhine-Westphalia and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing,”
recalls Fuchs, “and were able to col-31

Nanoscience

A DFG Special Edition

publications, which is the result of thework of their group, a strategy to attach molecular rotors to a surface andpropel them is discussed. The core of
the invention is a variable-length
linkage which connects the rotationanchor with the functional molecule.
And since each of the three elements
represents a different function, it ispossible to obtain molecular rotors in
different sizes, with different anchors
and varying functional groups by simply replacing the molecular components.

To study the self-organisation processes during epitaxial growth oforganic molecules in atomic resolution, a low-temperature atomic force
microscope was acquired at the University of Münster. TRR 61 researchers can now not only examine theposition of molecules in complete

Rotation starts
at 20 Kelvin.
Zillmann

32

Daša Kaliská working at the gigawatt ultra-short pulse CPA laser amplification system of
the TRR 61 in Münster with which, for example, time-resolved X-ray diffraction of functional molecular systems is possible.

laborate with, amongst others, Professor Zhu Daoben who, by then, was
one of the vice presidents in the
NSFC”. “And at the time we were already able to cooperate with Professor
Zhang Xi, who was part of the teamfrom the beginning when we applied
for a Transregio-CRC at the DFG three
years ago,” says Chi. Zhang Xi is the
speaker of TRR 61 on the Chinese
side.

I

t was the first time that German andChinese scientists wanted to put together such an extensive research collaboration in the form of a Collaborative Research Centre. “The evaluators

had some doubts at first whether thisrather complex cooperation between
German and Chinese institutions
would work,” says Fuchs. “But wecould already point to joint publications in prestigious scientific journals
and show how fruitful the cooperation with our Chinese colleagues had
already been on a smaller scale.”
Two years have passed and the cooperation is starting to bear fruit: “Wealready have several pending patents,” says Chi Lifeng and refers to thestatute of TRR 61 which lays down
the rules of dealing with intellectual
property in a way that ensures that
disputes cannot arise. In one of thelayers, but also individual molecules.
For this, however, the substrate surface must be considerably cooled,because otherwise the mobility of thesurface molecules would prevent imaging.
In such an arrangement it is possible, for example, to measure theforces that occur when single molecules shift on the atomically smoothsurface.
“What we are able to see in the
nano-cosmos is truly fantastic,” says
Chi. “We now know the impact thattemperature has on our rotation molecules. At 4 Kelvin nothing happens,
but at 20 Kelvin things start to move.”“We are now asking ourselves what
we must do to make all the molecules
rotate in one direction, “says Fuchs,“because if we succeeded in harmonising millions of such small rotors, wewould also have a useful effect in themacro-cosmos.” Perhaps one day one
could use them to make a pump orsomething similar, he thinks aloud.
Dieter Beste

Interview

A DFG Special Edition“Strengthening Our
Relations with China also
Strengthens Ourselves”
Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker on China’s race to catch up with the top research nations
Professor Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, now Secretary General of the International Human
Frontier Science Program Organization in Strasbourg, has always been a proponent ofSino-German research cooperation. Under his tenure as DFG President from 1998 to2006, the Sino-German Center for Research Promotion was established.

DFG

20 years, as China has risen from ascientifically developing country toan equal partner in research andtechnology. My own contribution tothis has included close cooperation
with the National Natural Science
Foundation of China. We even constructed a building together, and we
still run it today, thanks to our excellent staff on both sides.

In January 2010 you were awarded theMedal for International Cooperation in
Science and Technology in Beijing. What
does this award mean to you?
Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker: I havelong held the greatest respect for theintellectual, artistic and scientific potential of the Chinese people. Perhaps I’ve been inspired by an earlyreading of Leibniz’s Novissima Sinica,
where in the preface he already mentions the peculiarity that “humancultivation and refinement should
today [1697] be concentrated, as it
were, in the two extremes of ourcontinent,” and argues that both cultures should be brought closer together. Three hundred years later,
this seems just as interesting and justas necessary. The possibility of sucha collaboration is something I’ve
been able to experience over the last

How have you been experiencing the
rapid changes in China?
In the early eighties, when I was in
China for the first time, there werehardly any cars, just bicycles. And almost all the cyclists wore these darkblue uniforms. Today, it’s the complete
opposite. The streets look colourful,just like in the West. The few remaining cyclists have to fear for their lives
because of the car traffic. And air pollution has gotten better as well. That
terrible smog hasn’t disappeared entirely, but to a large extent. Finally, I’mvery impressed by the gigantic endeavour of trying to lure Chinese researchers back from other countries, especially the US, and creating an adequate
environment for them in China. I’ve
never envied the Chinese government
for its task of leading a nation of 1.3
billion people into a globalised world.
Even for us, this is not exactly easy. So
I’m not surprised that sometimes theytake different approaches in China
than we would.

What can Chinese and German researchers learn from each other, and how canthey work together even better?
Science is and always has been international. The internationalisationof science is therefore essential, notleast because the problems we face associeties – as defined by the UN millennium goals, for instance – don’t
stop at our borders. You can’t have too
many resources to study them. So it
does worry me that the number ofChinese students in Germany has
been flat for years, albeit at a highlevel. In Humboldt Research Fellowships, China is also at the top. But theactual number has barely increased
over the years. That’s why I think that
we need new instruments for doctoraland postdoctoral funding that go far
beyond what Research Training
Groups can do.
A major role in this exchange isplayed by the research funding organisations. The Max Planck Society
was a pioneer in this area, establishingcontacts with the Chinese Academyof Sciences as early as 1974. Hundredsof Chinese researchers now work at
Max Planck Institutes. The other research organisations are also engaged
in this issue. We can’t overstate theimportance of such contacts, because
they add value. When we strengthen
our relations with China, westrengthen ourselves.
Interview: Dieter Beste

33

The 2010 Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau

A DFG Special Edition

Science Connects
In Lindau, early-career researchers from China meet Nobel Prize winners and young
colleagues from all over the world.

Transparent larger-than-life portraits of Nobel laureates greet all
those about to cross the bridge
to Lindau Island in Lake Constance.
The pictures set the tone for an eventthat brings together two generationsof excellent scientists for the 60thtime this summer. 675 handpicked
early-career researchers from all over
the world get the chance to listen to
59 Nobel Prize winners in physics,
chemistry, as well as medicine andphysiology, and to seek dialogue withthem as well as their up-and-coming
peers.
Life-sized and real, the laureatessaunter through the crowd in the In-

selhalle. Those unfamiliar with theirfaces can identify them by the blue
colour of their name-badge lanyards;
grey is the colour for doctoral andpostdoctoral researchers. The two cohorts also differ in age, experienceand success. But this event is about
what they all have in common: a passion for science. Depending on personal temperament, the laureates
may convey their own enthusiasm
with seriousness, with a twinkle intheir eyes, or by skipping the formalities. Matter-of-factly, cancer researcher Harald zur Hausen reports on
cancer and infections; humorous andpeppered with anecdotes is chemist

Marion Kälke

34

Pictures of Nobel laureates greet arrivals on the side of the street to Lindau Island.

Martin Chalfie’s presentation on the
tortuous paths of basic research; while
physicist Robert B. Laughlin strays
from his specialty and challenges his
young audience with quite provocative questions on the future of energy.
Most of them are regulars in Lindau.
They all seem to have a teacher’s heart
beating in their chest, equally committed as they are to motivating andsupporting the next generation as todoing research. Their own gain is in
the curious questions asked by cleveryoung researchers.
Full of expectation, the early-career scientists push their way into theplenary hall in the morning and into

The 2010 Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau

A DFG Special EditionIn all modesty, the young researchers
from China are proud to be here.
And for good reason – competition isstiff in the world’s most populous
country. “Every doctoral researcher
would like to receive this honour,”explains Chen Lesheng, Vice Directorof the Sino-German Center (SGC),
which awards grants to enable young
scientists to attend the conference.
8,000 to 9,000 candidates, who had
been invited by the SGC to submit applications, were hopeful and anxious.
173 of them were nominated by the
CAS and Project 985, a governmental
funding programme for research at
China’s top 40 universities. A Chinese-German review panel ranked
their applications and then invited 76
young researchers for interviews. At
the end of a selection marathon lasting about eight months altogether, the30 brightest minds received invitations to Lindau.
It came as a surprise to the large,
prestigious universities that some of
the fellowships went to researchers
from smaller institutions, notes SGC
Director Armin Krawisch – a clear indication that it was the candidate’squalification, not the university’s rep-

utation, that determined who madethe cut. This is why the procedure has
been widely acknowledged. “In India
it’s considered best practice. And Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn from

Exemplaryevaluation
Thailand, who is being honoured thisyear in Lindau for her commitment toresearch promotion, wanted to learn
more about our system,” says Zhao
Miaogen, Vice Director of the SGC.

P

raise also comes from Lindau itself.
“The SGC evaluation procedure is
exemplary,” says Wolfgang Schürer,Chairman of the Board of the Lindau
Foundation, which organises the conference together with the Council. In
contrast to its usual practice, the foundation accepts the selection without
further review.
“We were told we’d be able to
make contacts here,” says Xiang
Tingting, who is half a year from fin-

ishing her doctoral thesis – on the interaction between host and microbes
in plants – at China Agricultural University, Beijing. “Well – here I am!”she adds with a confident laugh. The
young researchers from Africa, America, Asia, Australia and Europe show
no signs of timidity. A glance at thebadge with the foreign looking namequickly leads to conversations on research topics and to feedback on thelectures. In Lindau, the world has no
barriers. How this exchange of ideas
brings people together, across nations,cultures and religions, is being documented on the Internet in video blogs
by participants like Lei Kai from theInstitute of Developmental Biology
and Molecular Medicine at Fudan
University. And whatever self-consciousness the up-and-coming researchers may experience opposite
the greats of science disappears
quickly. By the second evening, withfood, music and party dances, the ice
is broken.
It’s especially personal questions
about the future that are on the

Marion Kälke

breakout rooms for more intimate discussions with their role models in theafternoon. One of them is Yun
Chenxia, a doctoral researcher in optical physics at the Chinese Academyof Sciences (CAS). In March she did a
two-week internship at the Max
Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in
Garching near Munich. Now she
looks forward to meeting Theodor
Hänsch, laser spectroscopy expert andinventor of the frequency comb. Ge
Liang, a postdoc who investigates themolecular mechanisms of cholesterol
absorption at the CAS’s Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, hopesthat the interdisciplinary aspects ofthe speeches, panel discussions anddialogues will give him food forthought. The pervasiveness of chemical and physical factors especially inbiomedicine is one of this year’s hot
topics in Lindau.

Chinese researchers with DFG President Matthias Kleiner and SGC Director Armin
Krawisch (center) as well as Vice Directors Chen Lesheng (front left) and Zhao Miaogen(third from right).

35

The 2010 Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau

young participants’ minds. Lei Kai,
who is particularly interested inmeeting the luminaries of his discipline, wants to know where developmental biology and especially stem
cell research might be headed. He
receives answers from no fewer thansix of them, including Robert H. Horvitz, expert on apoptosis (programmed cell death), and Roger Y.
Tsien, molecule designer in the service of biomedicine. Agronomist
Xiang Tingting, on the other hand, ismore curious about research careers
than scientific input. But they both
point out that the interaction with
their generational peers has been justas productive as making contact with
Nobel laureates.

E

ven after the conference in Lindau, the group of Chinese scientists continues to get new careerplanning ideas. For a week they visit
research institutions in Munich,Dresden, Berlin, Münster and Bonn.
At the DFG Head Office they learn
how to apply for a six-month research visit in Germany. Zhao Wei,
Lindau attendee in 2006, talks about
how this opportunity opened doors
for her in Germany. Today she works
for the Department of Surface Chemistry and Catalysis at the University
of Ulm on the Sino-German Fuel
Cell Initiative, which is funded by

A DFG Special Edition

the DFG and the NSFC. Furthermore, the SGC offers Lindau alumni
the option of proposing a three-year
research project in Germany throughtheir professor. “Visiting the Nobel
Laureate Meeting and German research institutions has helped improve mutual understanding andshowed us how we can make col-laborative projects happen,” says Yue
Rui. The young biologist quotes a
German saying: “You always meet
twice in life.” Having been to Germany once before, as an intern inBonn, he adds with a smile: “I definitely hope there will be a third
time.”
Marion Kälke“I was impressed by the highlevel of the Chinese candidates.”
I very much appreciate the Lindau Meeting as a place of scientific and intercultural exchange. During my term as DFG
Vice President from 2001 to 2007, it
was therefore my honour to be involved
twice in selecting those early-career researchers from China who would get the
chance to attend the conference. I wasparticularly impressed by the high levelof the young Chinese candidates. WhenI became President of the Alexander von
Humboldt Foundation, it was therefore a
special pleasure that this position gave me
more opportunities to be in contact with
Lindau fellows from China. Each year,
the Humboldt Foundation enables over
2,000 excellent scientists and academics
from all over the world to visit Germany
for research. It also actively recruits Chinese Lindau alumni to return to Germany
as visiting researchers. A number of them
have already done so with the help of
Humboldt Research Fellowships. This

Humboldt Foundation

36

makes me especially happy because I lookat these young researchers as opinion
leaders on German-Chinese cooperation.
Prof. Dr. Helmut Schwarz
President of the Alexander von­Humboldt Foundation

Catalyst SGC
Run by scientists for scientists: Internationalisation as a driving forceT

he close partnership between the
DFG and the NSFC materialised
about ten years ago in the SinoGerman Center for Research Promotion (SGC) in Beijing, an institutionthat is still peerless in the world. It operates according to guidelines set by a

Joint Commission that includes four
NSFC members and four DFG members and is co-chaired by two Vice
Presidents of the NSFC and the DFG,
respectively — currently Shen Wenqing for the Chinese side and Ferdi
Schüth for the Germans. Professor

Ferdi Schüth, Director at the MaxPlanck-Institut für Kohlenforschung,and commission member Dorothea
Wagner, professor of computer scienceat the Institute of Theoretical Informatics of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, talk about their experience.

Interview

A DFG Special Edition

It is one of the core tasks of the Joint
Commission to decide what the overarching strategic guidelines and objectives
should be for the activities of the SGC.
How do you work with your Chinese colleagues?
Schüth: There is absolute parity
when we work within the Joint
Commission. And to my knowledge
there has never been any real disagreement on what course the SGC
should be.
Wagner: I’ve been a member of the
Joint Commission for almost fourtalk about exciting new developments
in research, and we always find thatour views are largely in sync.
Now, it is DFG funding policy to support
exciting impulses coming from the scientific community, whereas the NSFC’s programmes tend to define topics more specifically ...
Schüth: These different approaches
to funding, even though they do exist,
aren’t really problematic for the SGC
in actual practice. For example, China
too pursues with a great sense of re-“We’ve been working together as equal
partners from the very beginning.”

The Joint Commission met in 2009 for aworking session in Freiburg. Included in
the photo: DFG Vice Presidents Ferdi
Schüth (front right) and Dorothea Wagner(centre).

sponsibility the question of how weshould handle the greenhouse gas
carbon dioxide in the future, and the
NSFC has research programmes forthis. At the SGC we were recently able
to approve a funding proposal by aninitiative at the Clausthal Universityof Technology concerning a joint project with Chinese partners to investi-

DFG

years now. During this time I’ve always experienced the atmosphere asvery harmonious and uncomplicated.
Schüth: What does occasionallycause minor problems is the fact that
the NSFC, according to its mission,
funds primarily the natural, life andengineering sciences. The humanities
fall through the cracks. The DFG, on
the other hand, supports a broader
range of disciplines.
Wagner: But apart from this one
difference in funding philosophy I
don’t see any conflicting goals. The
work of the commission is characterised by mutual interest and the desire
to accomplish a common goal, the intensification of research cooperation.
For example, one of the things we
discussed at our last meeting was how
early-stage researchers could be included even more in the SGC’s funding activities. The DFG has a lot ofexperience in this area, and the Chinese are very interested in it.
Schüth: Your example, Ms. Wagner, illustrates very nicely how we
decide the course of the SGC by consensus. At virtually every meeting wegate the subterranean storage of carbon dioxide from power plantemissions.
Wagner: In my field of algorithm
engineering we also see very clearly
how over the last ten years Chinesescience has rapidly caught up with theglobal top tier, not just quantitatively
but also qualitatively. Across all issues,
we cooperate on equal footing. And
this, I think, is also why the SGC has
become such a successful model.
We’ve been working together as equal
partners from the very beginning, andnow it’s really paying off. Going forward we may even be able to expand
this successful bilateral cooperation
on research and include other European partners as well.
Schüth: I would sum it up this way:
The DFG drives internationalisationin research wherever doing so is important for science and where researchers need our support. For ten
years now, the SGC has been functioning as an important catalyst in thisregard.
Interview: Dieter Beste

37

38

Interview

A DFG Special Edition

West-Eastern Normalcy
The Chinese think and act differently than Germans sometimes – but not to worry:
science, more than anything, is practiced in the international arena.
A conversation with Ingrid Krüßmann, China expert at the DFG Head Office.
Ms. Krüßmann, 15 years ago the DFG
and the NSFC began planning the SinoGerman Center. How has the relationship between the Chinese and the Germans changed since then?
Ingrid Krüßmann: In the beginning
there was still a certain formality to
our cooperation. The sequence of
events for delegation visits would be
precisely choreographed. We would
sit on opposite sides of the table in astrict hierarchic order. It’s still like thattoday during official delegation visits,
but we have a very trusting relationship now. We often communicate informally, address problems and solve
them. By now we all know each others’ mentalities, but also the constraints under which we all operate.
There are seminars that teach how todeal with Chinese business partners. Do
scientists also need a Chinese etiquetteprimer?
Communication among scientists
is less complicated than among businesspeople, if only because the scientists all research the same topics andwork in similar environments. They
often meet at international conferences, get acquainted more quickly,
and become closer. For example,
many Germans know that in China
the last name goes first. But then on
the English side of a Chinese businesscard, nowadays we may actually see
first and last names in the Westernorder. Many Chinese try to adapt toWestern customs, and the Germans
have read so much about China already that they behave in ways thatare perceived as Chinese. Sometimes
this can lead to funny misunderstandings.

What was the primary impetus behindthe mutual approach?
Aside from the internationalisationof research culture in general, a big
help in formal terms was obviously
the opening of China. Our bilateralfunding instruments can be used tohold workshops, symposiums andconferences.
Do German researchers today communicate with their Chinese colleagues as theywould with Europeans?
Not quite – there still are some differences. For example, the Chinese
are relatively spontaneous in the way
they organise a visit by a foreign delegation. When Europeans want to seea precise programme schedule weeks
before they actually travel to China,
they meet with little understanding
there. It’s considered entirely sufficient to hand the guests a programme
when they arrive. But by then it’s also

actly according to plan, whereas the
Chinese kept changing things around.
After we’d negotiated the details of
the construction, we were presented
with new plans when we were already at the airport, getting ready to
fly home. The Chinese construction
manager wanted to decide on site andon the fly how to do the electrical installations, for which the Germans
had already worked out a plan. So
there were some interesting intercultural experiences, especially between
the German architect and the Chinese
one, who designed much of the building together.
What are some of the sensitivities one has
to be aware of?
When the Chinese reject something they tend to express it indirectly.
Often they’ll respond by saying “We’regoing to review it” or “We’re going tothink about it”. They may want to buy

German penchant for planningmeets Chinese spontaneity.
very detailed and so meticulously
done that you can rely on it completely. This Chinese flexibility whenit comes to planning takes some getting used to for us Westerners, and it’ssomething that has changed surprisingly little. The Germans, on the other
hand, are often perceived as inflexible
by the Chinese.
Was this Chinese spontaneity also apparent during the construction of the SGC
building?
Oh yes. The Germans would always try hard to follow through ex-time to discuss it among themselves,
but it may already indicate a possible
no. Germans also need to learn how
to voice criticism respectfully and gently. Chinese colleagues often use
phrases like “We would like to learn
from you”, which are often misinterpreted by the Germans as gestures ofsubmission. They’re actually a polite
way of asking the other person’s opinion.
And how do the Chinese voice criticism,for example when they act as reviewers ofa project?

Interview

A DFG Special Edition

In the sessions that
I’ve attended, I’ve noticed big differences in
the willingness to express criticism. The German reviewers were a lot
more direct and the Chinese much more cautious and reserved intheir opinions. But this is
another area where behaviours are changing.
Chinese reviewers are
adopting international
practices.

Do hierarchical structures also come intoplay when a Chinese delegation visits
Germany?
Yes, and that’s why it makes sense,
for example, to think about the seating
arrangement ahead of time and put up
name plates. We shouldn’t throw ourChinese guests off by seating discussion participants in a deliberately random order. Some Chinese partners,
when they feel like they’re “in thewrong place”, may actually switch
seats in order to restore the proper hierarchy in the seating arrangement.
But even this habit is changing. Thenagain, our Chinese guests are some-

sometimes we even get
requests for individual
programmes.
Chinese researchers go
abroad with wind in theirbacks. German researchers,on the other hand, especially young ones, tend to
be more cautious. How canthis reluctance to research
visits in China be overcome?
There’s a lot of support
from research fundingorganisations, be it theDFG, for example in bilateral Research Training Groups, orthe DAAD for predoctoral students
and younger researchers. The benefitof Research Training Groups is that
doctoral researchers go abroad ingroups and work on their doctorates
within structures created especially forthis purpose. Chinese universities arealso increasingly better prepared to accept students from other countries.
They’re already offering courses taught
in English as well as comprehensive
advice by the foreign affairs offices,
called waiban in Chinese. We also see
the first young German professors
teaching and researching in China,
thanks to support from our partnerorganisation NSFC. It’s surprising thatnot more researchers embark on a
China adventure. Having this formative intercultural experience early onin your life will open many doors
down the line in your career.
Lichtenscheidt

Is there a culture of critical
discourse as there is here?
Do students and doctoral
researchers dare question aprofessor’s theory?
We often hear fromInternational ResearchTraining Groups, for example, that particularly
doctoral researchers who
go to China on a DFG
grant run into strict hierarchies there, and thatthe discourse in China’s
university departments
is less confrontational than it would
be in Germany. But I expect the cultures of discourse to become much
more alike over the next few years,
especially because of bilateral Research Training Groups and young
researchers’ experiences in them.

Dr. Ingrid Krüßmann is the
DFG Director of International Affairs in East Asia
and Mongolia. A sinologist,
she studied at the Universityof Nanjing already in theearly 1980s, on a fellowshipfrom the German Academic
Exchange Service (DAAD).
She was involved in theplanning and constructionof the Sino-German Centerfrom the very beginning.

times taken aback when the host pours
the tea or coffee. In China such a task
would be considered subordinate anddone by service staff.
Because of our preconceptions, the term
“Chinese delegation” conjures up the notion of a collective that acts in uniformity.
A Chinese proverb says, “When agroup of birds sit on a perch, the onethat sticks out its head may lose it.”That’s how members of a Chinese delegation explained their behaviour tome in a humorous way. The first delegation visits, which I was in chargeof, were indeed very formal, and themembers would always submit to thewishes of the delegation leader, without showing any emotional response.
He would also be the one to decide
how and when the next point on theagenda should be addressed. But
these days, individual personalities
are coming to the fore more, andInterview: Marion Kälke

39

Sino-German Center for Research Promotion (SGC)

Facts and Figures
The SGC is a unique Chinese-German
joint venture in research promotion.
The SGC administers its own funding
budget, which it uses to support specific activities relating to Chinese-Germanscientific cooperation.

The SGC mission• To initiate and intensify long-term
Chinese-German cooperative relationships in research• To promote specific bilateral research collaboration in the natural,
life, management and engineeringsciences within the framework of
SGC funding programmes• To promote cooperation between
Chinese and German early career
researchers• To provide advice and information,
particularly on core research areas,
funding activities and suitable partners for research cooperation in therespective partner countries• To improve the infrastructural conditions for scientific collaboration between China and Germany

ty for long-term bilateral co-operative
ventures (up to three years) involving
one or more research groups fromboth countries. Within this funding
scheme the Sino-German Center provides financial support for consumables and smaller items of scientificequipment, as well as travel and accommodation costs. German applicants may also apply for funding forstaff. The approval of an applicationin another funding programme of the
Sino-German Center is a prerequisite
for applications to this funding programme.
Early career grant programmes andsupport: The Center endeavours tobring together early career researchers from China and Germany as earlyas possible through the funding of
Sino-German summer schools, wheretrainers from both countries instructdoctoral researchers, post-docs and especially talented students in advanced
techniques and methods in their respective research areas. The Center also
stages forums in which early career researchers have the opportunity to meetand discuss with leading figures in theirresearch areas from both countries.
The SGC also provides funding for researchers from China to participate in
the annual Nobel Laureate Meeting in
Lindau, and for heads of independent
junior research groups to visit and workin China.
Infrastructure: The facilities at the Sino-German Center include several seminar rooms and eleven guest rooms,
which are available for up to twomonths to scientists staying in Beijing
in connection with Sino-German joint
research projects. Researchers from all
disciplines are welcome to make use of
the SGC’s infrastructure.
CONTACT:
Sino-German Center for Research­Promotion
Shuangqing Lu 83
Beijing 100085, VR China
Tel: +86 10 8236 1310
Fax: +86 10 8236 1222
E-mail:center@sinogermanscience.org.cn
http://www.sinogermanscience.org.cn/

SGC funding programmes
Chinese-German symposia and work­
shops: The funding of multi-day workshops and meetings is the SGC’s primary funding instrument. The workshops
bring together a representative selection of especially qualified researchers
from China and Germany to discussa specific topic in their respective research area.
Chinese-German cooperation groups:
The SGC provides funding for infrastructural projects of up to three years
in duration to support a concentrated
joint research effort in a specific field.
Cooperation groups consist of a network of complementary working
groups at a limited number of locations
that are engaged in a collaborative andinternational research endeavour.
Project funding: Chinese-German
research projects offer the opportuni-

Total expenditure of SGC funding programmes 2001-2009
Lindau: follow-up funding (since 2005)
0.9%
On-site preparation
Junior research group0.7%
heads (since 2009)
Lindau programme
0.1%(since 2004)
InstrumenPublications
4.3%
tation 1.2%
0.9%
Research projects
24.8%

Cooperation groups
18.9%

Summer schools(since 2004)
4.5%

Workshops
43.1%

Early career researcher
forums 0.6%

Further information on the SGC and its funding programmes is available on the SGC homepage:www.sinogermanscience.org.cn

Impressum: Published by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), Bonn | Responsible forcontent: Dr. Ingrid Krüßmann, DFG – International Affairs Division; Marco Finetti, DFG – Press and Public Relations | Concept and editing:Mediakonzept (www.mediakonzept.com), Düsseldorf | Text: Dieter Beste, Marion Kälke | Cover image: Ulrich Zillmann | Design: Lutz Stolz