Since the year of 1998, Nanjing University has sent to Germany a good many teachers and students for international conferences, short-term visits, academic exchanges and long-term advanced studies or cooperative researches. In the process, professors of Nanjing University won a number of awards from the German government, foundations, and academic institutions.

In August 1981, Professor Zhang Weilian of Nanjing University visited

To commend Professor Zhang Weilian’s outstanding contribution to the Sino-German cultural exchanges, German President  Richard von Weizsaecker awarded him “the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany” in 1988. Professor Zhang was the first one in China to win such an honor from Germany.