Joint programs, student and staff exchanges and academic resource sharing are among the outcomes of the International University Presidents’ Conference, held recently in Nanjing, China.
Co-hosted by University of British Columbia President Stephen Toope and China’s Vice Minister of Education Zhang Xinsheng, the conference was attended by 200 senior administrators from 53 Chinese universities and 24 universities in Canada, the UK, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and Ireland.
“UBC was delighted to play a leadership role in encouraging interaction between higher education leaders from Chinese and international universities,” said UBC President Stephen Toope. “Better understanding of current research and graduate training in top Chinese universities will greatly enhance future research collaborations and the creation of new knowledge.”
The conference also marked the 30th anniversary of China’s first international academic exchange. Over the past three decades, more than 1.2 million Chinese students have studied abroad and the number of Chinese scholars overseas has grown from 860 in 1978 to 144,500 in 2007. Almost 1,200 graduate and undergraduate students from China currently study at UBC, up from just 291 in 1996. The China Scholarship Council, which organized the conference, currently invests $100 million annually in scholarships for doctoral students studying abroad.
A number of agreements and memoranda of understanding were signed among delegate universities, including several between Chinese universities and the University of Victoria and UBC. John Hepburn, UBC’s vice-president, research, will co-chair a working group of representatives from Chinese and international universities to further develop and establish guidelines for collaborative research opportunities identified at the conference.
One of the top 35 universities in the world, UBC researchers conduct research in collaboration with colleagues from around the globe. The university is a key participant in a number of international university partnerships, including the Association of Pacific Rim Universities and Universitas 21. Prof. Toope recently spoke at the first-ever G8 University Summit held in Japan, where he was instrumental in committing some of the world’s most influential universities to high sustainability goals.
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