2016 Beijing Humboldt Forum: ZEW Researchers Discuss Industry 4.0
Events
The Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation jointly organised this year's Beijing Humboldt Forum in the Chinese capital on September 17–18, 2016. As part of the forum, ZEW organised a session on "The Digitization of the Economy." During the session, ZEW researchers Professor Irene Bertschek and Dr. Fabienne Rasel engaged in a discussion with international guests regarding developments, implications and changes resulting from Industry 4.0 and the digitization of the economy.
About 400 participants from science and politics attended the event, which featured insightful presentations on China's potential for sustainable growth against the backdrop of a declining, yet rapid economic growth combined with an increasing environmental pollution. In addition to digitization, key topics included the role of technological innovations, green mobility, global value chains, the teaching of the Chinese language as well as cultural aspects affecting the cooperation between China and the western world. The event was co-organised by BMW China, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (FhG), the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria (FH OOE), the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the Institute of Global Low-Carbon Economy (IGLCE) of the University of International Business and Economics.
Presentations shed light on the digitization of the German and Chinese economy
ZEW and the UIBE jointly organised a session entitled "The Digitization of the Economy", which analysed the economic effects of digitization and Industry 4.0. Professor Irene Bertschek, head of the ZEW Research Department "Information and Communication Technologies", explained how well Germany fares in international comparison in terms of progress of digitization, and highlighted key issues concerning the expansion and challenges of Industry 4.0 and cloud computing. In her presentation, ZEW Researcher Dr. Fabienne Rasel pointed out the significance of information and communication technologies for global procurement management in German companies. Professor Kai-Ingo Voigt from the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg presented findings of a survey on Industry 4.0-triggered business model changes, which he conducted among German businesses. In his presentation, Dr. Shiyang Gong (UIBE Business School) explained how advertising on Weibu, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter, influences Chinese television ratings. Mingfen Wang from the Chinese Academy for Industry 4.0 shed light on the key aspects regarding China's strategy for implementing Industry 4.0 projects. Finally, the session was concluded by a presentation from Jiang Yu (Chinese Academy of Sciences), focusing on different aspects of China's strategy regarding information technologies and Big Data, as well as on the role of the Internet infrastructure.
Forum for interdisciplinary dialogue
The event prominently promoted interdisciplinary dialogue, which is of central importance when it comes to determining and examining the entire scope of the future challenges of an ecological and sustainable society. High-profile speakers from different disciplines presented various perspectives on the topics under discussion and considered a variety of approaches to meeting existing challenges. In keeping with the objective of interdisciplinary and international networking at the Humboldt Forum, valuable contributions to the debate were made by researchers from such varied fields as economics, philology, physics and engineering. Given the success of previous editions, there is great interest in preserving the interdisciplinary character of the event. To this end, Thomas Kohl, director of ZEW and founding member of the Humboldt Forum, was appointed a new member of the committee in charge of extending the conference's programme after his opening speech. With collaboration partners such as Professor Xiaohu Feng of the UIBE, who has visited ZEW multiple times since summer 2015 in order to prepare the event, and ZEW Research Associate Professor Andreas Löschel from the University of Münster, the upcoming BHF in 2017 is all set to further strengthen interdisciplinary dialogue in the fields of environmental protection.