Press Releases Archive
21.04.2016
China Center Tübingen inaugurated
Karl Schlecht Foundation backs new institute researching culture of Chinese world – Focus on business ethics
The University of Tübingen today opened the China Center Tübingen (CCT). It was initiated and sponsored by the Karl Schlecht Foundation and will support research into the manifold aspects of economic, political, social and cultural life in China. A core area of research is the orientation of values in the Chinese world. The CCT will investigate the approaches to sustainability and ethics in the Chinese economy.
The new institute sees itself as a platform for research as well as for those with practical experience in China. It provides the opportunity for exchange and communication with Chinese academics, and plans to develop programs to improve knowledge transfer with today’s China.
“In an increasingly connected world, it is important to do more than simply obtain knowledge about other societies and cultures - we need to develop genuine understanding,” says Professor Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer, the CCT’s director. The CCT’s aim is to enable a productive discussion of China, not merely analysing but learning to reconcile differing perspectives. The deputy director is Professor Matthias Niedenführ of the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies.
The CCT will share some research areas with the Global Ethics Institute, which is also sponsored by the Karl Schlecht Foundation. The two institutes are located near to each other in Tübingen. The CCT will integrate the Erich Paulun Institute, which was founded in 2013 at the TU Munich by the German-Chinese Bureau of Economic Research. It supports Sino-German student clubs and the teaching of Chinese. (<link http: www.erich-paulun-institut.de>www.erich-paulun-institut.de)
Chinese Studies expert Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer is a Senior Research Fellow at the Lichtenberg Kolleg at the University of Göttingen. He was director of the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel from 1993 - 2015; prior to that, he was Professor of Ostasiatische Kultur- und Sprachwissenschaft at the LMU Munich (1981-1993). His research topics are the history of China and the European view of China, the modernization processes taking place at different times, and Buddhism as a transnational religion.
Matthias Niedenführ has been an assistant professor in Sinology and Economic Ethics at the University of Tübingen since 2014. The professorship is sponsored by the Karl Schlecht Foundation. He read Economics, Chinese and Japanese Studies at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and completed his doctorate there. From 2007 - 2014 he lived and worked in east Asia, and was manager of the University of Tübingen’s branch in Beijing, the European Center for Chinese Studies at Peking University. His areas of research include economic ethics in China, the political economy of communication in China, the construction of national identities, and institutional economies in east Asia.
The Karl Schlecht Foundation is a non-profit organization focusing on good leadership. Its guiding principle is to improve leadership in business, society, and politics via humanist values. The Foundation supports projects in research and education which contribute to the development of values-oriented personalities in young people and rising leaders. It was founded in October 1998 by Professor Dipl.-Ing. Karl Schlecht. Karl Schlecht is the founder of the concrete pump manufacturing company in Aichtal. (<link http: www.karlschlechtstiftung.de>www.karlschlechtstiftung.de)
Contact:
University of Tübingen
China Centrum Tübingen
Prof. Dr. Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer (Director)
Phone: +49 163 8080108 (Press enquiries)
Asst. Prof. Dr. Matthias Niedenführ (Deputy Director)
Phone: +49 7071 29 72781
Secretary: +49 7071 29-72711
<link>info[at]cct.uni-tuebingen.de
<link http: www.cct.uni-tuebingen.de>www.cct.uni-tuebingen.de