Press release: German-Japanese University Consortium expands support of young researchers

Nr. 165/2013 - 20.09.2013

More exchange programmes, doctoral degrees, summer schools – dynamically developing research collaborations

(pug) The universities in the German-Japanese Consortium "HeKKSaGOn" will be intensifying their support of young scientists and scholars through joint research projects. A declaration of this intention was signed by the universities’ administrations at the network’s third rectors’ meeting, held at the University of Göttingen. The universities of Göttingen and Heidelberg, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), and three of Japan’s leading universities – Kyoto, Osaka and Tohoku – founded the consortium in 2010. The partners intend to establish more joint doctoral programmes, increase the number of jointly managed doctoral theses, offer summer schools for their doctoral candidates and promote exchange between young scientists and scholars. In addition, cooperation is to be increased in areas of research previously not involved in the collaboration.

The conference revolved around presentations given by the six universities, profiling their respective models for the development of young scientists and the opportunities for cooperation that could result from them. Representing the Göttingen Research Campus, Professor Stefan Treue, Director of the German Primate Centre in Göttingen, showcased the successful model of the Göttingen Graduate School GGNB, which is funded by the Excellence Initiative. In addition to intensive discussions on higher education policy held during the meeting of rectors and presidents, more than 80 scientists met in Göttingen to share their views on future projects in eight different workshops. The collaboration currently focuses on energy research, robotics and mathematics, materials science, nanotechnology, and neuroscience as well as cultural translation and disaster prevention.

"The presentation of the working groups' results demonstrated that the network has made rapid progress in recent years," says Professor Hiltraud Casper-Hehne, Vice President for International Affairs at the University of Göttingen. "The consortium has grown together and tackled innovative projects, which now allows other areas of research to be integrated as well. Although initially only two or three of the partner universities were involved in many of the working groups, currently almost all groups have five or even all six partner universities working together."

The unique consortium of German-Japanese collaboration aims to ensure the sustainability of transnational initiatives and projects. The next "HeKKSaGOn" recotrs’ meeting will be held in the spring of 2015 at Tohoku University in Japan.