Based on the different research backgrounds of both cooperation sides from China and The Netherlands, this proposal focuses on the development and fabrication of novel supramolecular organometallic catalysts (SOCs) including self-assembly/coordination directed catalysts and SOCs with atomic, cluster and nanoparticle dispersed on 2D materials. These SOCs hold the potential to resolve obstacles existing in sustainable hydrogen generation and selective hydrogenation of non-functionalized substrates. With these recyclable SOCs possessing homogeneous molecular catalyst properties, the effects of metal precursors, ligand structures, steric bulkiness, assembly approaches and interfacial properties on reaction conditions, catalytic efficiency, conversion and selectivity of the reactions will be investigated by taking the oxidative hydrogenation of biomass polyols, electrocatalytic hydrogen generation, as well as asymmetric hydrogenation of non-functionalized olefins as model reactions. After detailed investigations on interface effects, size effects, and domain confinement effects of the SOCs, conceptually new catalysts with high efficiency, selectivity and recyclability are expected to be developed by adjusting the corresponding ligands and their supramolecular assembly manner. With all information in hand, the optimized precursor SOCs will be coupled to electrodes to develop a series of robust and efficient catalytic electrodes, and their applications in sustainable energy production and fine chemical transformations will be explored.

Cultural encounters between China and Europe are increasingly frequent. With intensifying trade relations, business cooperation, and tourism come meetings of different kinds. Yet preconceptions, stereotypes, and misunderstandings often distort the European perspective. This is not a new dynamic. It is rooted in the first period of intensive contacts, when European trading companies, missionaries, and travellers established contacts with Chinese merchants, scholars, and officials. This Dialogue Seminar brings together Dutch and Chinese historians to explore intercultural meetings during the late Ming and Qing dynasties (1600-1900). In this large topic, the focus will be on China and the Low Countries. From the seventeenth century on, the Netherlands were the European hub for products from and images of China. Moreover, Chinese encounters with foreigners were often mediated by the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch maritime world therefore provides a useful lens and a laboratory for studying mutual Chinese-European cultural representations. Historians in China and Europe are increasingly finding their way to each other?s sources and archives to chart the socio-economic reality of past encounters. In addition, the history of the Christian missions has been a consistent point of attention. Mercantile, military, and religious encounters between Europeans and Chinese have therefore been studied at length. What has been understudied in this earlier scholarship, however, is the cultural dimension. Addressing this dimension is all the more important in light of the continuing relevance of perceptions of cultural difference in East and West. This Dialogue Seminar will explore to what extent the approach of cultural history, which focuses on issues of representation, can be relevant to the study of encounters between Chinese and Europeans. Interdisciplinary and comparative in scope, it addresses visual, literary, and scholarly representations of East and West against the background of actual encounters. Understanding the development of mutual images which developed synchronously in China and Europe enlightens intercultural relations that continue to be relevant in a globalized world.