Press release: Research and knowledge transfer with modern China

Nr. 157/2014 - 15.07.2014

Göttingen University opens first Academic Confucius Institute worldwide

(pug) The University of Göttingen has ceremonially inaugurated the first Academic Confucius Institute (ACI) worldwide. The Institute aims to do primarily research-orientated work and educate the public about the knowledge gained through current research. The university will run the ACI in co-operation with their Chinese partner universities, the University of Nanjing and the Beijing Foreign Studies University.

"The opening of the Confucius Institute at Göttingen University exemplifies yet again the huge importance of Sino-German cooperation within the university sector,“ Lower Saxony's Minister of Science and Culture, Dr. Gabriele Heinen-Kljajić, stated. "The Institute's work will not only intensify the dialogue between Lower Saxony and China in the area of science, but certainly in dimensions way beyond this.“

"The location Göttingen is ideally suited for an Academic Confucius Institute," Professor Hiltraud Casper-Hehne, Göttingen University's Vice President of International Affairs, emphasized. "One of the reasons is the Centre for Modern East Asian Studies we have established and meanwhile excellently equipped with five professorial chairs. Moreover, Göttingen is the first university in Europe to establish a degree programme for teaching Chinese as a foreign language and the only university in Germany to offer a professorship in the didactics of teaching Chinese as a foreign language."

"The mission of the Academic Confucius Institute at Göttingen University is to become a platform for academic exchange in the field of Chinese as a foreign language,“ explained Professor Henning Klöter of the Centre for Modern East Asian Studies and Head of Göttingen University's Department of East Asian Studies. "The only way we can ask the questions and find the answers that contribute to significantly improving the Chinese taught in the classroom is through close collaboration and in a dialogue with China. And this is exactly the concept the Academic Confucius Institute intends to leverage.“

One central area the Göttingen Confucius Institute will concentrate on is research into the didactics of teaching Chinese as a foreign language in the classroom and converting this into practice. This means holding academic workshops, continuing teacher education courses and consultations for schools. Secondly, it aims to disseminate the knowledge gained on modern China through current research in the humanities, social and economic sciences to the science, business, and media communities, to associations, the political arena as well as to the public at large. This aim will be pursued in international workshops, conferences and lecture series among other events.

The inaugural opening of the Academic Confucius Institute was part of the "Sino-German Festivities“ held from 1 to 5 July 2014 at the University of Göttingen. Against this backdrop, the University celebrated 30 years of collaboration with the University of Nanjing, 25 years of the Sino-German Institute for Legal Studies at the Universities of Göttingen and Nanjing, alongside 10 years of an official joint venture agreement between the two universities, among other milestones.

Contact addresses:
Professor Hiltraud Casper-Hehne
Vice President, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Wilhelmsplatz 1, 37073 Göttingen; phone: +49 (0)551 39-13110
E-Mail: hiltraud.casper-hehne@zvw.uni-goettingen.de
Internet: www.uni-goettingen.de/de/vizepraesidentin-prof-dr-hiltraud-casper-hehne-/110984.html

Professor Henning Klöter
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Centre for Modern East Asian Studies; Head, Department of East Asian Studies
E-Mail: kloeter@uni-goettingen.de
Internet: www.uni-goettingen.de/de/prof-dr-henning-kloeter/429618.html