Dear readers,
the University of Nottingham awarded a grant by the European Commission for its programme "EU-China Civil Society Dialogue on Participatory Public Policy". The German Asia Foundation as a member of the EU-China Civil Society Forum is participating in this project.  Together with the Institute for Civil Society at the Sun Yat-sen University (ICS) the German Asia Foundation is co-responsible for the policy areas Environmental Health and Labour Relations. Regular information about the project will be found on www.eu-china.net in future.

More details about the project can be found in the full text of the Press Release and the short project description (in English and in Chinese) which are available for download here.

We are looking forward for your comments and cooperation. Please forward this message to your colleagues and friends which might be interested in this project.

Dr. Klaus Fritsche, German Asia Foundation


University of Nottingham awarded €1 million grant to establish EU-China Civil Society Dialogue on Participatory Public Policy
Nottingham, UK, 17 January 2011
Contact: Dr. Andreas Fulda, e-mail: andreas.fulda@nottingham.ac.uk 
(more contact details can be found in the pdf-file)

The University of Nottingham has been awarded a €1 million grant by the European Commission to establish a EU-China Civil Society Dialogue on Participatory Public Policy.

From 2011 until 2013 the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies through its think tank China Policy Institute (CPI) will foster durable and sustainable links between European and Chinese civil society stakeholders in eight policy areas. The policy areas include

• 1) Climate Change and Corporate Social Responsibility,
• 2) Environmental Health,
• 3) Labour Relations,
• 4) Community Building and Service Provision for Vulnerable Groups,
• 5) Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship,
• 6) Participatory Public Policy and Freedom of Information,
• 7) Government Finance Reform, and
• 8) Civil Society and The Rule of Law.

“We believe that intercultural dialogues are more likely to promote policy change when participants in our eight EU-China Civil Society Dialogues can engage in conference-based learning and apply their new knowledge in follow-up activities”, Program Manager Dr Andreas Fulda states. “Our dialogue program allows European and Chinese participants to identify areas of common interest, followed by the design of joint follow-up activities which improve public participation at one or more phases of the experimentation-based Chinese policy cycle.”

According to the European Commission (EC) “Europe has a major economic and political interest in supporting China’s sustainable development and successful transition to a stable, prosperous and open country”. In China’s EU Policy Paper the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic states its objective “to expand China-EU cultural and people exchanges under the principle of mutual emulation, common prosperity and complementarity, and promote cultural harmony and progress between the East and West”.

Civil society researcher Dr Nora Sausmikat at the German Asienstiftung asserts that the needs of both Europe and the PR China can be met through cross-cultural collaboration of civil society stakeholders: “NGO’s should not only work on but with China.” Such calls for an extended European China engagement are also being echoed on the Chinese side. Wu Baiyi, Professor at the Institute of European Studies (IES) argues that “China and EU should add more substance to their political ties. While overcoming institutional and ethical differences, both need to deepen their mutual confidence by building a multi-tier political dialogue to bridge the gaps not only between top leaders, but also among grassroots level officials, non-government activists and the general public.”