October 2013, deputy director YU Yuehui became one of the 13 winners of the “Helmholtz International Fellow Award” for his contribution in the cooperation between SIMIT and Juelich Research Center. On October 1, 2013 vice president Prof. Sebastian Schmidt awarded Prof. YU the honor under the witness of 54 guests.

In May 2010, CAS-Shanghai signed the master cooperation agreement with Juelich Research Center. The first “Joint research laboratory on superconductivity and bioelectronics” was established in May 2011. In 2013, SIMIT became the full overseas member of the virtual institute on topological insulators, sponsored by Helmholtz Association, in which PGI-9 is taking charge. 

SIMIT representative participated in the kickoff meeting of the virtual institute in Feb. 2013, held in Germany. Up to now, the two partners have organized five workshops, cultivated jointed nine Ph.D. students, among whom 3 stayed at SIMIT, continue working on superconductivity, and 1 received the CAS president award as well as 24 joint papers and 1 international patent was documented. The cooperation contributed to the fast developing of superconducting electronics research in SIMIT, helped in the building our reputation in the international community, and played an important role in the successful establishment of the Shanghai Center of Superconductivity, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SC2, CAS). Meanwhile, after many years cultivation, with the strong support from both sides, the small scale point-to-point cooperation on superconductivity has developed into extensive collaboration between the two parties with fruitful results achieved. During the second joint lab committee conference, the idea of establishing a joint research institute has been generated.

On October 11, 2013 prof. YU reported the cooperation to prof. LU Yongxiang, former president of CAS, and discussed the future plan with prof. Mlynek, president of Helmholtz Center.