Society

British University to launch Guangzhou centre

By Zhang Chunyan (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2011-07-02 18:16

London - The University of Birmingham is to open a collaborative centre later this summer in Guangzhou, China, with the government of Guangzhou, the university announced on Friday.

The University of Birmingham Guangzhou Centre will help identify, design and co-ordinate the delivery of joint research projects in Guangzhou, the province of Guangdong and the broader Pearl River Delta region.

The centre will also support knowledge transfer and engagement with business interests in the region, act as a base for research staff, and be a catalyst for the development of greater expertise on China within the University.

During a visit to Birmingham this week, Gong Erzhen, the vice mayor of Guangzhou, signed a memorandum of cooperation relating to the centre with Professor David Eastwood, vice-chancellor of the University of Birmingham.

"Building on a decade of engagement with partners in Guangzhou, I believe that as we strengthen our presence through the Birmingham Centre that future prospects for deep and lasting collaborations, bringing benefits to the citizens of Guangzhou and beyond, are bright," Eastwood said.

The centre will be well-placed to study the economic and urban development of Guangzhou and the wider Guangdong region, and engage both the policy and private sectors in ways that could bring considerable mutual benefits.

Gong said: "Guangzhou attaches great importance to friendship and cooperation with the UK. We have established sister city ties with Birmingham and Bristol and are delighted to be working with the University of Birmingham to launch a collaborative centre in Guangzhou. In 2010, the foreign trade volume between Guangzhou and the UK reached $1.4 billion."

Initial collaborative research themes for the centre include energy, advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, medicine and healthcare, computer science and software and urbanisation.

These themes are selected on the basis of the research expertise of Birmingham, the economic and social benefits to Guangzhou and how they match with the work of partner institutions.

Guangzhou, the capital of the Guangdong Province in the Pearl River Delta region of southern China, and a sister city of Birmingham, is the location of one of the most successful British academic engagements in China - the Guangzhou Biobank Cohort Study.

The Birmingham Guangzhou Centre will build on the existing engagements and enable further academic collaborations in a wider range of areas.

This highly acclaimed project between the University of Birmingham, the University of Hong Kong, the Guangzhou Occupational Diseases Prevention and Treatment Centre provides a groundbreaking platform for collaborative research into the effects of genetic and environmental influences on health and chronic disease development.

Furthermore, the University of Birmingham's College of Social Sciences has run summer programmes in Birmingham for senior officials from across Guangzhou municipal government agencies since 2006.

The University of Birmingham is one of the most engaged British universities with China and is ranked in the top three in the UK for the number of joint publications with Chinese collaborators.