DAAD Vice President Max G. Huber and the Head of the International Department of the Chinese Ministry of Education, Cao Guoxing, have signed an agreement on the creation of a new scholarship programme “for excellence”. The programme aims at intensifying the cooperation between German and Chinese top universities.

The programme will enable doctoral students and young researchers from the 20 leading Chinese universities to carry out research stays at German top higher education institutions. These would be German institutions – graduate schools or “excellence clusters" - which form part of the Initiative for Excellence of the German Federal Government and of the Länder (see ACA Newsletter - Education Europe, June 2005). The preparations for the Initiative for Excellence had been met by considerable interest in China, with a view to future cooperation in teaching and research.