In 2006, the Max Planck Society and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) agreed to set up a jointly financed Doctoral Promotion Programme in order to identify and promote talented Chinese junior scientists.

Every year, the CAS Graduate Schools receive more than 6,000 new doctoral students. CAS offers the best doctoral students from these graduate schools the opportunity of carrying out their doctoral research partly or entirely at Max Planck institutes or International Max Planck Research Schools (IMPRS), and then to obtain their doctorate either in Germany or in China.

The candidates are identified by CAS in an internal selection procedure and are given exhaustive advice by the Max Planck Society during information events in China. The respective Max Planck institutes or International Max Planck Research Schools (IMPRS) have the final say in accepting a student to the Promotion Programme.

Around 35 doctoral students from CAS are accepted to the Max Planck Institutes and IMPRS each year as part of the programme. The length of a student’s stay varies from one to three years. The first candidates from the programme have already graduated successfully in China and Germany. Some of them have even moved on to conduct research at Max Planck institutes thanks to postdoc grants.(MPG)