Jump directly to the page contents

Helmholtz call for 2022 CSC PhD and Postdoctoral applicants

The Helmholtz Association is the largest research organization in Germany and Europe. It consists of 18 national laboratories with 45,000 employees; it runs an annual research budget of 5 billion euros. The Helmholtz Association conducts application oriented strategic basic research; it operates the large scientific research infrastructure and is dedicated to solve grant scientific, economic and social challenges. The  Helmholtz Association conducts cutting-edge research in six major research fields, including energy, earth and environment,  life science and health, , information technologies and big data, space, aeronautics  and transportation, and matter. 

The Helmholtz Association has been cooperating extensively with Chinese national research insitutions and partners from universities. Many of Helmholtz centres have established joint institutes, joint laboratories, especially with the institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and leading universities in Beijing and Shanghai. Since 2006, after the China Scholarship Council launched its high-level high-education improvement program, the Helmholtz Association has started a joint program with CSC, including joint funding for PhD students into a Helmholtz Center for further study or pursuing a PhD degree. Since 2013, the Association has established a joint postdoctoral scholarship with the Office of the China Postdoctor Council, affiliated to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of the People's Republic of China. Apart from this, Chinese researchers  could also exploit a Humboldt Fellowship or a DAAD-CSC Postdoctoral Fellowship as financial support for doing research in Helmholtz.

The Helmholtz Association shall recruit annually roughly 200 young Chinese researchers in the last years (alone some 80 Chinese CSC students would be enrolled for Jülich Research Center - FZJ and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology- KIT). Helmholtz has been the largest German academic institution hosting the largest number of Chinese researchers above a PhD candidate level. We estimate around 1400 Chinese nationals within Helmholtz centres, half of which are on Helmholtz contracts, including some senior researchers and team leaders; the other half are mainly PhD students funded by a scholarship, mailnly through a CSC program.

Most of the research teams of the Helmholtz Association are welcoming Chinese applicants, as long as their background and the research topics are not  related to military or defense related topics.

The Helmholtz Association has a representative office in Beijing since 2003. This office is acting as a catalyst to bridge mutual understanding and to help develop cooperation projects, to promote academic exchanges. The Helmholtz Association has compiled a list of around 60 position descriptions, with the email addresses of the Helmholtz supervisors and a brief definition of the proposed research. Those young Chinese researchers and students, who are willing to apply for a research stay in Helmholtz via a CSC fellowship, shall download these information and submit their application to the individual Helmholtz scientists, who are looking for good Chinese candidate.  Those, who have passed through the prelimilary selection, shall submit again their appliccation to CSC with the supporting letter and CV from the Helmholtz scientist.  

For specific position information, please refer to the following files:

List of the Helmholtz calls containing the names of the supervisor, research topics and type of candidates (Excel file)

Profile of the research positions (zip file)

The Chinese application procedures and application documents are indicated on the webpage of the China Scholarship Council at its official websit:

https://www.csc.edu.cn

If you would like to have additional help from Helmholtz, please feel free to contact our representative office at the following address:

Helmholtz Beijing Representative Office

Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres

D1-1102B, Diplomatic Office Building, 19 Dongfang Donglu

Chaoyang District, Beijing 10004

Tel: +86-10-65907865/66

E-mail: info@helmholtz.cn

As curious as we are? Discover more.