China-specific characteristics of the emergence of innovations in artificial intelligence and environmental protection: education system, interaction between science and business, large-scale projects (ChiKUBIG)

How are ideas of creativity induced and conceived in the Chinese education system and what are the connections to the promotion of innovation processes? This is the question that the Chair of Adult Education at the Institute of Vocational Education and Adult Learning (IFBE) is addressing in the ChiKUBIG project. The focus of this sub-project is on the connections between educational processes and the innovation system.

About the project as a whole: The People's Republic of China is increasingly changing from a production location to an innovation location. The Chinese innovation system is subject to completely different mechanisms than the German innovation system in that it combines centralised top-down control with decentralised experimental spaces in the sense of a bottom-up approach. This interplay of state control and experimental freedom is comparatively unique.

In cooperation with the Institute of Geography and Geology at the University of Greifswald and the Institute of Economic and Cultural Geography at the Leibnitz University of Hannover, the IFBE is dedicated to investigating this complex of issues in the ChiKUBIG project.

With regard to the identification, systematisation and processing of specifically Chinese factors influencing innovation for German research and innovation policy, there are still considerable gaps in knowledge. Against this background, the research project presented here aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of these influencing factors in the Chinese education system (creativity development), in the institutional framework (cooperation between science and industry) and in specific organisational forms (especially large-scale projects and clusters) in the German-Chinese innovation context.

The central aim of the joint project is to identify and systematise specific Chinese factors influencing innovation and to prepare them for German research and innovation policy. The IFBE's work focuses in particular on aspects of creativity development that receive special attention in the Chinese education system. These will be examined from an educational science perspective in their (educational) policy fundamentals as well as exemplarily in their conceptualisations and forms of realisation.

The research interest of the project focuses on the technology fields of artificial intelligence and environmental technologies, as these are considered central drivers of innovation, to which great importance is currently attached both in China and in Germany.

The project should enable German innovation actors to better understand the motives and modes of action of Chinese actors as well as the mechanisms of the Chinese innovation system, which are expressed in indicators such as research and development expenditure, publications and patent applications. The findings from this project are thus relevant both for Sino-German partnerships in science and industry and for China's own actions in competition with China.