Gesellschaft Chinesischer Physiker in Deutschland e.V. (GCPD e.V.)
Founding of GCPD e.V.
On June 23, 1978, the chief architect for China`s policy of “reform and opening to the outside world”, DENG Xiaoping has appealed for the first time selecting and dispatching Chinese students to industrialized western countries to learn modern technology and management. Ten years later more than 100 Chinese students and scholars were studying or doing research in physics or physics-related disciplines in Germany. Despite of their busy studying, WANG Hexin and some other students spent their spare time to think about founding a society for Chinese physicists and other scientists from related interdisciplinary are as in Germany to promote the exchange of scientific ideas among them and to build a bridge for them to develop new ideas how to contribute more to the modernization of China. Their idea won the strong support of JIANG Dayuan from the Education Section of Chinese Embassy in Germany.
Based on the steady and highly efficient principle, a working group headed by WANG Hexin for the preparation of founding a society for Chinese physicists in Germany was built in the early 1989 in Oldenburg, a beautiful university city located in central-western Germany. On the one hand, these working group members began to communicate with Chinese physics or physics-related students distributed in whole Germany. And on the other hand they began to draft the charter for the society to be founded according to all the requirements for registration of a society in Germany. After repeated discussions and corrections a 12-page long charter for the new society containing 16 clauses was finally finished. The German name of the new society was chosen to be “Gesellschaft Chinesischer Physiker in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland e.V.” and the first alphabets GCPD were taken as the abbreviation of the new society’s name.
On May 11, 1990 the founding ceremony & the first annual meeting of GCPD took place in the Education Section of Chinese Embassy in Bonn in a simple decorated room but in a solemn atmosphere. More than 30 Chinese students as well as the responsible officials of the Education Section of Chinese Embassy in Bonn took part in this historic meeting. All participants discussed and billed the GCPD’s charter drafted by the working group unanimously at first. Then the first 7-member board headed by WANG Hexin was elected democratically according to the GCPD’s charter, where JIANG Dayuan was elected as an invited member of the board (see also Table 1). After that 15 high-level papers about different aspects in physics were presented, which made up another important part of the first annual meeting. Since then, an organization connecting Chinese physicists and other scientists of physics-related disciplines began with her daily work.
At beginning of 1991, the first GCPD’s board headed by WANG Hexing had GCPD’s society registered in Oldenburg with a notarial charter of GCPD signed by LU Bo, ZHANG Yonghang, LI Ruicheng, LI Baowen, JIA Xinan, WANG Hexin and CHANG Qing before two German lawyers. Since then, the symbol of e.V. for a registered organization in Germany was added to GCPD, so that GCPD e.V. functions since then as a non-profit organization which can accept donations from companies, other organizations or private persons for the development of GCPD e.V. itself.
Development of GCPD e.V.
The organization structure of the first GCPD’s annual meeting was adopted by the following annual meetings with a steady improvement under new historic conditions. Under the constant financial support from the Education Section of Chinese Embassy in Bonn and great efforts made by all board members, the annual meeting was organized at a weekend in the second part of each year (see also Table 2). The second and third annual meetings took place also in Bonn just like the first one.
From the fourth to the seventh meetings the meeting sites were moved to Youth Hotels located in small university cities around Frankfort which is located almost in the middle of Germany. On the one hand, the accommodation pressure on the Education Section of Chinese Embassy in Bonn was avoided and on the other hand, participants from different cities in Germany could easily reach the meeting sites to reduce the travel compensation owing to the limited budget of GCPD e.V. Such Youth Hotels in Germany provide not only simple accommodation rooms but also sufficient meeting facilities.
Each board of GCPD was re-elected strictly in accordance with the GCPD’s charter during each annual meeting. LI Ruicheng, LIU Baining, MEI Weiping and YANG Lianxiang were elected to be chairmen from GCPD`2 to GCPD`6, respectively (see also Table 1). Officials from the Education Section of Chinese Embassy in Bonn, such as DONG Jinping, CHEN Guoquan, LIU Baoli and ZHAO Zhensheng have been involved in the organisation of annual meetings of our society in different periods. There were always invited and regular talks of high-quality at each annual meeting, which reflected the newest research results of Chinese scientists in Germany. How to serve the scientific and economic development in China with our knowledge earned abroad was always one hot topic discussed among participants during each annual meeting. Although each annual meeting had a duration of only two days, all participants have got a lot, because such annual meeting provided not only an academic exchange channel among scientists of different research directions, but also promoted the friendship among all participants. Annual meetings have contributed a lot to the development of GCPD e.V.
Besides the successful organization of annual meetings, a lot of enthusiastic members of Board of GCPD (see Table 1) have made a lot of contributions to the stable development of GCPD. Member identity cards were designed and printed during GCPD`92. New press channels were found during GCPD`95 to make our society more popular. GCPD`91 has begun to find additional funding to publish the first journal of GCPD. GCPD`94 has published the high-quality journal of GCPD — “WULI” through a German printing house. It is worth to note that one of the founders of GCPD and the chairman of GCPD`90, WANG Hexing has never left the Board activities of GCPD since her founding. Since GCPD`91 WANG Hexing has hold the position of the Chief Editor for the annual journal of “WULI” and sacrificed a lot of spare time to devote himself for the high-quality of our journal. Under his efforts our annual journal “WULI” has got in 1996 the International Standard Number: ISSN 1431 – 391X, which laid the foundation for the standardization of our journal and the increase of publishing samples. Since then, the annual journal of GCPD — “WULI” has become an effective channel for information exchange among GCPD members and an important window of our society towards outside.
A turn point in the further development of GCPD took place during GCPD`97 held in Darmstadt in September 1997. For the first time in the history of GCPD, LIU Baining has introduced a new style in the election of GCPD’s board on his initiative. In the past the election procedures looked like this: Board members were proposed from participants and then selected by democratic voting among all participant members. The chairman was then nominated by the new elected Board. The new style is a little bit similar to the democratic election of a country’s president: the chairman’s candidate makes a speech concerning the goals during the elected period on his initiative. After the approval by democratic voting among all participant members the chairman-elected can build the board on his own choice. Before the annual meeting goes to end, the chairman-elected should show the board members to all participants.
After becoming the chairman of GCPD`7 by adopting this new election style, LIU Baining has tried several new ways to organize the daily work and to prepare important events like annual conference under constant support of the Education Section of Chinese Embassy in Bonn as well as the board members. He has prepared several short journals and Christmas cards for all GCPD’s members. During his several visits in China LIU Baining has tried to make GCPD popular on all possible important occasions. New financial channels was explored e.g. from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). The cooperation relationship between GCPD and the Chinese Physical Society was established in 1997 through his efforts.
The annual meeting in 1997 (GCPD`97) was organized according to international conference standards. Organizing committee, advisor committee as well as secretary were built up. All conference materials like Call for Papers, Advance Program and Technical Digest were made for the first time in English. The conference registration was done by the conference secretary. Over 30 participants were registered and also some famous scholars from China have joined this conference. Every registered participant has got a conference bag with conference materials as well as presents donated by some German companies. Chinese Physical Society (CPS) has sent one representative Prof. YU Yude to participate GCPD`97 meeting, who has read also the congratulation letter of CPS. The Counselor of Education Section of Chinese Embassy in Bonn, Prof. ZHOU Jialun has gave an important speech during the opening ceremony. A banquet was hosted by Director LIU Qibao in the Berlin Bureau of Chinese Embassy. Besides the invited and regular talks, plenary talks and poster papers were introduced for the first time. Besides these 28 excellent papers presented at GCPD`97, also a discussion round concerning how to make more contribution to the modernization of China was organized.
LIU Baining candidated for the continuous second term and was re-elected to be the chairman of Board of GCPD`8 by a unanimous vote. He nominated his board members (see also Table 1) and took ZHANG Qincheng as the vice chairman, because he has made tremendous contribution to the organization of GCPD`97 meeting. It took a lot of time to collect papers and to publish them in the first Technical Digest of high quality in the history of GCPD. Also the whole secretary with ZHOU Yiyuan, SHI Renhu and GAO Chunqing has done excellent jobs for a standard registration and best service during GCPD`97. During the continuous second term, LIU Baining has continued to make GCPD more popular during his several visits in China every year and kept the two main characteristics of our society further developed, i.e. the organization of high-quality annual meeting (GCPD`98) and the publication of high-quality annual journal as important tasks of high priority. The successful new features of GCPD`97 were transferred and developed for the organization of last year’s annual meeting (GCPD`98) held in Hamburg (see also Table 2). The German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) has provided both conference site and financial support owing to great effort of SHI Wenlong. 38 papers of high-quality were presented. “The Best Thesis Award” was introduced for the first time during GCPD`98 meeting to promote young scientists in presenting their research work. ZHU Qi was the lucky winner for his excellent presentation of his work at TU Berlin. The Consul General of Chinese Consulate in Hamburg, TAO Xiangzhen hosted an evening reception and Beefang Hotel provided accommodation with a special reduced rate owing to great job of MEI Weiping. The annual journal of GCPD “WULI” in English with international standard was distributed during GCPD`98 to all participants owing to great effort of ZHANG Qincheng. All conference materials are made in English too, just as we did successfully for GCPD`97. All members of the GCPD`98 secretary did excellent jobs for a standard registration and best service before and during the meeting.
LIU Baining candidated for the continuous third term and was re-elected to be the Chairman of Board of GCPD`9 by a unanimous vote. He nominated his enlarged board members (see also Table 1) to prepare the 10th anniversary meeting of GCPD to be held in September in Berlin this year. For the first time, the GCPD`99 will cover events on three days instead of two days as in the past. The most important reason for this is that the 10th Annual Conference is a special one with an increasing number of participants. On the invitation of the organizing committee, the Chinese Physical Society and the Chinese Academy of Sciences will send for the first time a delegation with about 5 members, respectively, to join this last GCPD conference in this millenium to give all participants a very good chance to speak directly to them about different current topics concerned to a lot of members in the society and to increase personal links to funding channels and research institutions in China. In addition, the organizing committee has invited also some scholars from China, who have returned to China after their study and research work in Germany, to join GCPD`99 to give all participants a good chance to talk directly to them about their experiences during their works in China afterwards.
The successful features of GCPD`97 and GCPD`98 will be transferred and developed for the organization of GCPD`99 (see also Table 2). All program chairs are doing excellent preparation works for GCPD`99. Technical University Berlin will provide both conference site and financial support. The GCPD`99 technical program will include one plenary session and different sessions including invited and contributed papers encomprising the whole field of physics, physical engineering and related interdisciplinary areas as well as some special topics related to overseas Chinese scholars as a whole. It is expected that one additional session for half an hour will feature poster papers, which will be shown during the whole conference. A discussion round with the topic “How GCPD goes into next millenium with a strong connection to China`s development?” is planned. Many Chinese scholars in the society are concerned about their final positioning in their life: to stay in Germany or to go back to China? This discussion round will provide unique environment for all participants to exchange views on the future.
Feature and Future of GCPD e.V.
In summary, the Society of Chinese Physicists in Germany (GCPD e.V.) was officially founded and registered in Germany in 1990. As a non-profit organization, the goals of GCPD e.V. are to promote and encourage communication among our members both in Germany and in China and to establish contacts with national and international organizations. It builds also a bridge for Chinese scientists in Germany to develop new ideas, how to contribute more to the modernization of China.
Since then GCPD has registered more than 1000 members. The most important events of our activities include the organization of a high-quality annual meeting and the publication of a high-quality annual journal (ISSN 1431-391X). Both important events mentioned here have been organized with the international standard since GCPD`97. Since then all conference materials and journals are made in English corresponding to international conference and journal standards. Besides participants from Germany also some famous scholars from China were, are and will be invited to join our annual meetings. We have established cooperation with Chinese Physical Society since 1997. Furthermore, many members of our society provide consultations to Chinese institutions.
Although many members of our society are studying or working at German universities, research institutes or in German companies and cannot go back to China immediately, they are very concerned about the development in China. Many members of our society have tried different ways to serve our motherland. More and more people will do in similar ways. Therefore, our society will keep developing our characteristic events like annual meeting and annual journal on the one hand and try to expand our activities a little bit in the frame of possible limited budget and time on the other hand. We will attract more Chinese scholars both in Germany and in China to join our society. We will organize some events like organization of more members to attend conferences in China and to visit Chinese institutions to promote more communication between the Chinese institutions and our society.
The past and the future of our society are connected tightly with all our old and new members for their active participation and good suggestions. We hope that more and more Chinese scholars in Germany will join our society. We welcome also more companies and institutions to support some activities of our society in a proper way, e.g. advertisements in our annual journal or to act as sponsors for our annual meetings.
Last but not least, we would like to express our sincere thanks to the Education Section of the Chinese Embassy in Germany for the constant financial support for our society in the past nine years. Our sincere thanks go also to the Berlin Bureau of Chinese Embassy in Germany, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Technical University Berlin for the generous financial support for GCPD`99. We thank also Chinese Physical Society for the excellent cooperation in the past three years.