Dr. Isabelle Harbrecht has a long and distinguished career focused on China. She lived in China for ten years and has been working in international development and education cooperation since 2011. Among other things, she was Head of the North-East and Central Asia Department of the Hanns-Seidel-Foundation and Head of the International Office at the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences. At Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Harbrecht is responsible for the conception and implementation of measures of the China Competence Training Centre in the Research Service Center and advises the university on China cooperation. She received her Ph.D. in sinology from the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg.

Ferdinand Schaff is Senior Manager Greater China at the Federation of German Industry (BDI) and Co-Head of the Young China Watchers (YCW) Berlin Chapter. He has a decade of experience in shaping and aligning diverging interests within Germany’s business community and with German civil society and government actors. In this role, he served as lead drafter of the 2019 BDI paper entitled “China – Partner and Systemic Competitor.” This position paper helped shape the EU Commission’s tripartite formulation of its relationship with the People’s Republic of China as a “partner, competitor, and systemic rival.” He previously worked as a research assistant at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS). He holds a masters degree from the London School of Economics and bachelor’s degree from the University of Cologne, both in China studies.

Ella Soesanto is Senior Programme Officer in the Asia Division of the Heinrich Böll Foundation and is responsible for the Northeast Asia region, with a focus on China and Korea. She has more than a decade of experience working in a political foundation and is therefore familiar with the interfaces between politics and civil society. In this context, she is committed, among other things, to integrating regional perspectives from East Asia more strongly into political debates in Germany. Most recently, she was closely involved in setting up the foundation's new office in Seoul. Soesanto studied East Asian Politics and Chinese Language at the Ruhr University Bochum and Eberhard Karls University Tübingen at the Sichuan University in Chengdu.

Dr. Angela Stanzel is a Senior Associate in the Asia Research Division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). Her research topics include China’s foreign and security policy, EU-China relations, as well as foreign and security policy developments in the Indo-Pacific region. Before joining SWP she was a Senior Policy Fellow in the Asia Program and the representative in Germany of Institut Montaigne. She was also the editor of the institute's quarterly publication, China Trends. Prior to that, Stanzel worked as Senior Policy Fellow and editor of China Analysis in the Asia Program at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) in Berlin. She earned her PhD in Sinology at the Free University Berlin in 2013. Her dissertation focused on China-Pakistan relations.

Xuedan Tang (Echo) is a Berlin-based film curator and cultural worker from Chengdu, China. She is the founder of CiLENS, a Berlin-based, non-profit film curation collective that engages audiences in an in-depth exploration of contemporary China and the Sinophone world through thematic screenings, panel discussions and more. She is also the founder and festival director of the Indie Chinese Cinema Week (ICCW) in Berlin, which is supported by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe for its second edition in 2023. In 2021, she received the German Chancellor Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and moved to Berlin from Beijing, where she worked as documentary producer. She studied in Shanghai, New York and London, with a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in arts management.

Christina Adamski holds a degree in Economics and Modern China and is currently pursuing an MA in Asian and African Studies from Humboldt University Berlin. She has gained extensive international experience through studies and internships in several of China's major cities. Her experience includes a year in Shanghai as a high school exchange student, an internship at the German Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, and an exchange program at Peking University's Department of Education. Additionally, she interned at the Beijing office of the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
 

Christina Adamski is mentored by Dr. Isabelle Harbrecht.
 

Susann Fowler is a China studies graduate with a strong interest in EU-China foreign policy relations. She is currently pursuing an Executive Master in EU Studies at the Centre international de formation européenne (Cife), focusing on Political Science. With over 7 years of experience as an Executive Assistant in international environments, Susann has developed excellent organisational and communication skills. As a participant in the BCCN-YCW Berlin Mentorship Program, Susann aims to transition from her Executive Assistant role to a more substantive policy work environment with an EU-China focus. She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Cultural and Business Studies from the University of Passau and studied Chinese language in Ningbo and Nanjing.

Susann Fowler is mentored by Dr. Angela Stanzel.

Jelena Große-Bley is based in Berlin working on climate change adaptation in China with a special interest in food systems, agricultural biodiversity and the role of expertise in living amidst uncertainties of the Anthropocene. She is pursuing her PhD in Berlin at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin as part of the IRI THESys Graduate Program and is a Visiting Predoctoral Fellow in the Lise Meitner Research Group "China in the Global System of Science" at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. She holds an MA in Modern East Asian Studies from Georg August University of Göttingen and an MSc in Environmental Management from The University of Hong Kong. Before joining the China Studies Institute at Freie Universität Berlin 2018-2021 as a lecturer and research affiliate, she spent over five years studying and working in various locations across Greater China.

Jelena Große-Bley is mentored by Ella Soesanto.

Liese-Lotte Wieprecht is currently a legal trainee at the Kammergericht Berlin. She studied law at Humboldt University Berlin and Peking University, focusing on corporate and Chinese law. She also holds a Master of Arts in International Relations, where she wrote her thesis on the Chinese political economy. Her engagement with China began in 2013 during an exchange year in Zhengzhou, and she has since continued studying the language, fostering intercultural dialogue, and organizing events in Germany to promote deeper understanding of China. She is particularly interested in combining her regional expertise with her interests in law, political economy, and international affairs.

Liese-Lotte Wieprecht is mentored by Ferdinand Schaff.

The Berlin Contemporary China Network (BCCN) was founded in Spring 2021. It is a joint initiative by researchers at the Humboldt University of Berlin, the Freie Universität Berlin, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, and the Technische Universität Berlin. The key objectives of the BCCN are to strengthen the links and exchange among Berlin-based scholars working on contemporary China at the participating institutions; engage in collaborative research and teaching projects; and provide a public platform for highlighting the collective China-related expertise available in Berlin.

Learn more: https://berlincontemporarychinanetwork.org/ 

Young China Watchers (YCW) is a dynamic group of China-focused young professionals. Through regular roundtables and talks with senior figures in the China academic, policy, and business communities, the organization provides a chance for engaged individuals to interact and discuss the most pressing issues emerging from China today. Through our growing global network, we seek to foster the next generation of China thought-leaders. YCW was first established in Beijing in the spring of 2010 and has steadily expanded its network to 10 chapters including Shanghai, Hong Kong, London, New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Singapore, Brussels and Washington DC with more than 5,000 members around the world.

Learn more: https://www.youngchinawatchers.com/