Leading Chinese Universities visited by senior Bangor delegation

Following on from the successful launch of Bangor University’s Beijing Office by the British Ambassador to China, a team of senior academics and administrators headed by the Vice Chancellor, Prof. John Hughes have visited leading Chinese Universities in March 2011.

Bangor VC Prof. John G. Hughes with Fudan University President Prof. Yuliang Yang The fact that heads of School from Law, Psychology, Creative Studies & Media and the Business School were involved in the visits, as well as senior staff from Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, showed that Bangor was determined to actively pursue cooperation and partnerships in China, commented Prof. Hughes.

Delegates from Bangor were welcomed by Presidents, Vice Presidents and Deans on their visits to a number of leading Chinese Universities in the Beijing and Shanghai areas. These Universities included Renmin University, Beijing Normal University, Beihai University, China University of Political Science and Law, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiatong University, Shanghai University, East China Normal University, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, and Tianjin Normal University. The visits have given Bangor academics a valuable opportunity to meet their Chinese counterparts and discuss, in person, areas where closer links could lead to mutually beneficial results. Issues that have come up in discussions include joint research projects, faculty and student exchanges and various models of course progression (2+2 at undergraduate level and 1+1 at postgraduate level etc.)

Considerable progress was made on accelerating research links between leading professors in China’s top ten Law Schools and Bangor Law School’s international commercial and business law research group. This builds on existing teaching collaboration between Bangor Law School and China’s elite law schools. There was also focused discussion on mutual summer school promotion and programme development collaboration. Bangor currently hosts elite Chinese national exam students on its LLM and PhD programmes.

Bangor Psychology Staff Richard Wigzell with East China Normal University faculty staff memberDr Stephanie Marriott, Head of School of Creative & Media Studies said “We have been delighted by the shared interests we have discovered with colleagues in top media schools in Beijing and Shanghai and look forward to the development of productive and positive teaching and research partnerships in the very near future.”

Prof. Oliver Turnbull of the School of Psychology said “I have been very impressed by the facilities I have seen and the quality of science that these universities are producing and I am confident that we will be able to deepen our links with China.”

In addition to very promising visits and discussions Bangor is pleased to announce that during this visit to China agreements have been signed with Shanghai University, China University of Political Science and Law and the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics. Dr Wu, Bangor’s Director of International Development said “These agreements are a tangible measure of Bangor’s increasingly international outlook and we hope that they are the first of many in the coming years.”

Publication date: 23 March 2011