Why I moved my research to China from Germany: a biologist’s experience

China did not hide its goal to attract the best scientists in the world. Over the past three years, a whole group of highly qualified researchers have emigrated there.

Wolfgang Baumeister, a molecular biologist, began working in China in 2019 after working for nearly three decades at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Munich, Germany.

Baumeister is a pioneer of cryogenic electron tomography, which allows researchers to create three-dimensional images of large molecules and the insides of cells. For this work, he was awarded the Hong Kong Shaw Prize for Life Sciences and Medicine this year. He now works at the iHuman Institute at Shanghai University of Technology in China and continues to study the molecular mechanisms involved in the development of type 2 diabetes.

Nature met with Baumeister in Hong Kong. Below is an edited version of that conversation and his conversation with reporters at the Hong Kong Laureates Forum 2025.

Why did you decide to move to Shanghai Technological University?

My colleagues and I received a large grant from the European Research Council to work on neurotoxic aggregates inside cells. But in Germany we have mandatory retirement. My contract was extended beyond the normal retirement age, and my colleagues in China knew about it and said, “Why not come to China and continue working?”

I also had offers from the US to continue my research there, but they would have required me to move there permanently. Thanks to Shanghai University of Technology, I can come and go. I've been there six times this year, usually for two weeks.

What is it like to work as a scientist in China?

There are things that I had to get used to. For example, university HR departments are more powerful here. As managing director of the institute in Munich, I always tried to ensure that the administration served the scientists and did not command them.

In Germany, when we bought an instrument, I was used to making this decision myself. What happens here is that the university wants the responsibility for this decision to rest with a committee that is often not an expert. Very often I say, okay, we can pay for the tool, and then they tell me that the committee will meet in two months and then make a decision. This is often a waste of time.

But when it comes to buying very expensive and high quality equipment, like a $15 million electron microscope, I just talked to the president of the university for 10 minutes and he approved it. Very important things are often decided spontaneously by management. This is very good.