Sino-German Center for Research Promotion

The Sino-German Center for Research Promotion (SGC) is a research funding institution based in Beijing, established as a joint venture by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation, DFG) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

The NSFC is the most important institution in China for the funding of basic research in the natural sciences, life sciences, engineering sciences and management sciences. The DFG is the central self-governing research funding organisation in Germany. It serves all branches of science and the humanities by funding research projects at universities and other public research institutions. Both organisations aim to deepen and expand mutual scientific relations. The first cooperation agreement was signed in 1988.

The SGC is tasked with promoting scientific cooperation between Germany and China with a focus on the natural sciences, life sciences, engineering sciences and management sciences. Its budget (in 2016: RMB 45.2 million or approximately 6,1 million euros) is used to support a range of funding programmes tailored to this purpose. In addition, the Center serves as an information platform, works to improve the infrastructure framework for scientific cooperation between Germany and China, facilitates the exchange of information about the research system in each country, and provides bilateral early career support. In this way it makes an important contribution to long-term cooperation between universities, research institutions and researchers in both countries.

The initiative of the NSFC and the DFG to found a jointly run center originated with a Chinese proposal in 1994. The idea was to create an institution to intensify scientific exchange between Germany and China.

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