University of Waterloo Visits China to Strengthen Bonds With Research Partners

BEIJING, CHINA--(Marketwired - April 20, 2014) - Feridun Hamdullahpur, president and vice-chancellor of the University of Waterloo in Canada will visit China this week to strengthen relationships with leading Chinese universities.

Hamdullahpur will meet with representatives from five of China's top universities: Tsinghua University, Nanjing University, Beijing Jiao Tong University, Zhejiang University and Soochow University. Hamdullahpur will also learn more about China's education policy through meetings with representatives of the Ministry of Education.

"It is essential that we build strong relationships with Chinese institutions as we seek to provide researchers and students with a diversity of experience and insight that is vital to the pursuit of knowledge and discovery," said Hamdullahpur. "China has an impressive group of universities that share Waterloo's passion for expertise in research and academic excellence."

Hamdullahpur's visit to China is an important step in Waterloo's efforts to expand its relationship with globally engaged research universities. It follows the announcement that Canada's U15 Group of Research Intensive Universities joined China's C9 League as members of the Global Network of research intensive university groupings.

As part of the visit, two of the world's most innovative universities reached a new agreement that will prepare Chinese students for study in Canada.

Tsinghua University, ranked among the world's top 50 universities, will offer a one-year pre-bachelor level course from its School of Continuing Education that will allow students from China to study at the University of Waterloo.

"This new agreement will allow gifted Chinese students to prepare at one of the top global universities for study in world-class programs at the University of Waterloo in Canada," said Hamdullahpur. "Tsinghua and Waterloo share a spirit of innovation that will enable students to meet the challenges of life in an evolving global society."

Hamdullahpur signed the new agreement on Monday as part of a weeklong visit to China. Earlier in the day, he met with Chen Jining, president of Tsinghua, to discuss opportunities for further collaboration between the two institutions.

At Nanjing, Hamdullahpur will join a delegation of more than 10 researchers from Waterloo for a joint symposium on the environment. Among Waterloo's delegation is Professor Daniel Scott, who recently released research that revealed that only six of the previous Winter Olympics host cities will be cold enough to reliably host the Games by the end of this century.

More than 3,000 students from China currently study at the University of Waterloo.

Background

• In addition to the new study agreement, Tsinghua and Waterloo share expertise in quantum information science in the Tsinghua-Waterloo Joint Center for Quantum Computing.
• Waterloo's Faculty of Science and Institute for Quantum Computing has recruited several Tsinghua students to post doctoral roles and graduate studies.
• Each summer, the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo sets aside two of only 20 openings in the prestigious Undergraduate School on Experimental Quantum Information Processing specifically for Tsinghua undergraduate students.
• The University of Waterloo and Nanjing University have capitalized on opportunities for international education by establishing the Sino-Canadian College that has focused on environmental studies of coastal China.
• Soochow University regularly hires students from Waterloo's world-renowned co-operative education program and partners with Waterloo on nanotechnology research.

About the University of Waterloo
In just half a century, the University of Waterloo, located at the heart of Canada's technology hub, has become one of Canada's leading comprehensive universities with 35,000 full- and part-time students in undergraduate and graduate programs. Waterloo, as home to the world's largest post-secondary co-operative education program, embraces its connections to the world and encourages enterprising partnerships in learning, research and discovery. In the next decade, the university is committed to building a better future for Canada and the world by championing innovation and collaboration to create solutions relevant to the needs of today and tomorrow. For more information about Waterloo, please visit www.uwaterloo.ca.

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