PhD Project: Sino-Danish knowledge collaboration

In recent years, a growing number of Sino-Danish knowledge collaboration is initiated among the government, enterprises and research institutions. In order to promote the development of Sino-Danish knowledge collaboration, Denmark and China has jointly set up three Confucius Institutes in Copenhagen and Aalborg.
Confucius Institute is a non-profit public organization which aims to promote Chinese language and culture study, assisting culture exchange and activities of business. These 3 Danish Confucius Institutes are expected to play an active role in Sino-Danish knowledge collaboration.
However, the Danish local society expressed different voices towards the Confucius Institute both positively and negatively. Thereby, the purpose of my PhD study is to find out the role of those three Confucius Institutes and understand how those Confucius Institutes may be helping Sino-Danish knowledge collaboration.
Base on cultural dimensions theory, cultural organizations can be regarded as a reflection of national culture. According to this theory, it could be argued that to spread an (inter)cultural organization overseas such like Confucius Institute can be seen as a process of development national soft power. However, literatures also reported that cultural organizations often face various challenges such as cultural encounters and sustainable development.
To sum up, the main objective of my PhD study is to investigate the following research questions: How can an (inter)cultural organization such as Confucius Institute can be used as soft power strategy to contribute the establishment and sustainment of Sino-Danish knowledge collaboration?