In 2012 China and Germany celebrate 40 years of diplomatic relations. Between the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and many Helmholtz Research Centres there has been very successful scientific cooperation since the end of 1970s. Both Helmholtz and CAS see each other as strategic partners sharing many joint research interests. In August 2011 the president of the Helmholtz Association Professor Jürgen Mlynek, and the CAS president Professor BAI Chunli signed an agreement to establish 5 Helmholtz-CAS Joint-Research Groups (HCJRG).
Helmholtz Association just announces recently a joint-call for 5 Joint-Research Groups together with its partner CAS in February 2012. The targeted research fields include energy, earth and environment, health, key-technology, structure of matter, space and transportation.
The aim for this HCJRG programme is to support the jointly identified cooperation projects with mutual interests and scientific excellence. It is hoped that this instrument would reinforce the connections between Helmholtz and CAS and improve the visibility of the successful collaboration between the two parties. Even the German university partners could also benefit for participating in these HCJRG projects.
The HCJRG call is to find in the Helmholtz English website at :http://www.helmholtz.de/en/jobs_talents/postdoctoral_students/helmholtz_cas_joint_research_groups/
And the Chinese call on the CAS website is at: http://www.bic.cas.cn/tzgg/201202/t20120213_3439013.html
Each selected joint research group would be funded for three years, while Helmholtz invests 80,000-120,000 euro annually and CAS will invests 300,000 RMB/year or around 35,000 euro/year. According to the signed agreement between the Helmholtz and CAS presidents, it is expected that there should be at least two further rounds calls in the subsequent years if this first one runs well.
