The talk reviews the design and outcomes of an empirical study to explore the inner workings of tried and tested collaborative research venues in the sciences engaging scholars from both Europe and the PRC in order to investigate the limits and transaction costs of “global research”: In international research collaborations with China and in China, are both sides on the same page when it comes to research puzzles and outlines, approved research standards and what passes as legitimate goals or valid outcomes of research? Is the PRC, an ambitious newcomer in the science business, possibly up to claim stronger participation for itself in the governance of science, calling for new non-hegemonic, multiple standards for global research? To vet these propositions, 2011 to 2015 we conducted semi-structured interviews with 54 scientists and 15 research managers from public and private funding organizations or research agencies, both in China and Europe.

Ultimately, the project did not yield evidence for an imminent conflict of different epistemic claims, research cultures or moral economies in collaborations between scientists from the global West and the PRC. While this might be regarded a positive failure, the accounts we gathered of collaborative experiences and narratives of “otherness” were rather sobering in that, at least at the time of the field study, we found no level playing field. Instead, both sides were keen to leverage distinctive strengths and weaknesses of their partners and, as it were, role-descriptions for their mutual benefit.