MCI Professorship to Wei Manske-Wang

In recognition of her achievements in research and teaching, transfer to business and society, internationalisation and the further development of the Entrepreneurial School®, the MCI recently awarded Dr. Manske-Wang the title of professor.

The academic career of the new MCI professor began for the native Chinese in linguistics, where she completed her Bachelor of Arts in German Studies and Tourism at the East China Normal University in Shanghai with honours. In Germany, Wei Manske-Wang obtained her academic diploma in economics (Department of Business Administration) on the "Honors" programme of the Elite Network of Bavaria at the University of Regensburg (degree: Master of Science; with Honors).

While working, she continued her doctorate in economics at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, where she completed her doctorate in economics with the empirical thesis "Urbanisation and energy supply of megacities in China".

Over the past 14 years, Dr Manske-Wang has successfully made a name for herself in the German industrial sector. In practice, she is also deepening her research interests, namely strategy development for marketing and companies, identification of technology trends and innovation potential and, above all, networking the German-speaking economic area with the new technology superpower China. Her extraordinary international network is reflected, among other things, in her guest professorship at Shenzhen Technology University in China and in numerous teaching activities at various German universities such as the East Bavarian Technical University of Regensburg, the University of Tübingen, the Technical University of Munich, Chemnitz University of Technology, etc., where she has been teaching part-time since 2015.

In her inaugural lecture, MCI Professor Dr Wei Manske-Wang will focus on the highly topical subject of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also known as the "New Silk Road". She focuses in particular on the period from the official announcement in 2013 to the creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in 2015 and the rapid development into a geopolitical field of tension that symbolises infrastructure development in emerging countries - with corresponding opportunities, risks and geopolitical implications. Professor Manske-Wang focuses in particular on the cultural and social aspects of this Chinese strategy, which spans three continents.

"In international business, you build up an understanding of the differences but also the similarities between different nations and cultures. The underlying knowledge should enable us to act in a meaningful way in order to shape our common future on this earth in a sensible way," emphasised Ms Manske-Wang at the end of her inaugural lecture. This principle is upheld in the China Centre at the MCI, which was founded in May 2021 and is headed by Manske-Wang. The China Centre will serve as a bridge for economic, political and cultural exchange between Europe and China.

MCI Rector Andreas Altmann presented the certificate of appointment as UAS professor together with the Chairman of the University College Prof. Dr Franz Pegger and Department Head and laudator Prof. Dr Siegfried Walch.