The project, which has been funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) through an Innovation Cheque, has now been successfully completed.

The Innovation Cheque was handed over to Prof Rüdiger Frank by Mag. Manfred Steinkellner. The project is result of a cooperation between Steinkellner China Services, represented by Mag. Steinkellner, and our chair. "Mag. Loher and Mag. Steuer have worked very hard to make this reality. I am very proud of their achievement, and hope that this project will be just one out of many public-private partnerships to develop in the future at our Department of East Asian Studies. In the end, this is one of the things only Area Studies can deliver - knowledge of context and points of access, fruitfully applied to the "real world" of business, politics and culture and matched with the needs and capacities of multiple disciplines", says Prof Rüdiger Frank, Professor of East Asian Economy and Society and Head of the Department of East Asian Studies. The project has been funded with 5,000 EUR and lasted for 6 months.

The project was conducted by two of our PhD students, Benjamin Steuer and Josef Falko Loher. Both have already gained broad experience in the fields of climate change politics and environmental technologies in China through their master as well as PhD research and various other research projects.