Crossing Boundaries, Unlocking Learning Opportunities: A case study of LJMU-SHNU student exchange partnership

The partnership

Liverpool and Shanghai have been sister cities since 1999. This relationship, added to existing university collaborations, formed the basis of a strategic partnership between Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) and Shanghai Normal University (SHNU), forged in 2017 on the shared values of providing and maximizing student learning opportunities in a cross-cultural global context. That same year, LJMU set up its China Office headquarters on the SHNU campus. The following year in 2018, our two universities created a “Consortium of Modern Civic Universities”, named Better Futures, in collaboration with University Technology Mara in Malaysia and Southern Connecticut State University in the US. These two signature events paved the way for exclusively coordinated and quality student exchange programmes between LJMU and SHNU.

Drawing on its long-term engagement in UK-China educational and cultural exchange and expertise and experience conducting exchange programmes and projects, the British Council launched Generation UK in 2013 to help UK students boost their potential and competitiveness through learning and cultural experience in China. This project has provided invaluable guidance and encouragement to the sector, as well as funded opportunities, to highlight the value of UK-China student mobility. The campaign has practically fuelled LJMU’s determination to expose its students, both on campus and beyond to Chinese culture, learning styles, and importantly, unique perspectives and ways of approaching problems.

We have conducted four SHNU Summer School programmes over the past five years, each focussing on a specific theme, such as finance, environmental protection, visual and performing arts, Chinese language and culture, and sports. Equal numbers of students and staff from both LJMU and SHNU have participated in each of these programmes. Each year, around 100 students from LJMU travel to Shanghai, including wider participation students, most of whom had never travelled abroad before. Various activities are arranged as part of the summer schools, including class sessions, group projects, industry and cultural visits, joint sports matches, mini-film productions, fashion shows, Formula 1 race car design and theatre performances.  

Programme Design

To ensure the programme’s effectiveness and a high level of engagement from students, our programme design has generally taken the following into consideration:

1. Themes: Through close consultation between our two partner universities, we assign each Summer Camp a specific theme or themes. Past themes have included industrial internships, language and cultural immersions, financial and commercial modelling, and sports. This allows more in-depth exploration of subject areas for the students, and allows organizers to add more substance to time-limited activities, thus adding to the attraction of the camps. Normally, both universities work together to identify those themes that are most attractive to students.
2. Recruitment: Effective approaches should be employed to attract and prepare students from both institutions to travel internationally and participate actively in the summer school activities. On-campus recruitment briefings, flyers, professor consultations, student ambassadors and most importantly, information collection and provision through the LJMU China Office, have proved to be very practical tools in advertising our projects.
3. Funding: Costs and sources of funding have always been an immediate and practical consideration for the students, parents, the university and external funding bodies. Each year we managed to minimize students’ financial burden through a three-party sharing system, i.e. parent support, university budget and external funding (for example the Generation UK OMI partnership fund) all contributing to our summer school projects. At the same time, both universities work together to make the programmes most cost-effective.
4. Pastoral care: Logistics should be carefully planned, as considerations such as international travel, local transportation, accommodation, food provision, culture shock and health, all involve safety precautions. Here again, the LJMU China Office plays a key role together with the host university, in providing pre-departure support, orientation and pastoral care.
5. Capacity building: Academics and professional staff’s involvement and best practice sharing has been a highlight of this collaboration. Workshops around international recruitment/marketing/project management have been delivered to share experience and knowledge, to help reach internationalisation goals by working together. The Better Futures Conference is a good example.
6. Delivery mode: During the pandemic, summer schools have been moved online to ensure continued engagement between staff and students. 10 SHNU staff participated on the LJMU International Winter and Summer School, alongside 40 other Chinese partners’ staff, from which innovative virtual international teaching and learning approaches were shared and learned.

Experiences and gains

The Summer School programmes between LJMU and SHNU have been applauded as an excellent initiative to open a window for more LJMU students to see and taste China’s culture, education, industries, and language. At the same time, through their interactions with UK students, SHNU students have been thrilled to find their counterparts very different from how they are portrayed in literature and films. Most important, “we’ve developed an awareness of viewing academic, daily life and even problems from uniquely different perspectives, and that contributes to our creativity”, as one student put it at a summer school summary presentation. Another student saw themselves as “ambassadors of friendship, cultural understanding, and knowledge sharing”. If we could summarise what has made our Summer School programmes successful, these might be:

1. Agreement and alignment of both partners’ values that student cross-border and cross-cultural mobility is an important part of equipping students with an international vision and competitiveness.
2. Leadership in internationalization strategies that led to the creation of a university consortium and the LJMU China Office based at SHNU.
3. Both universities have a regular annual budget specifically allocated to student mobility programmes.
4. Both universities set up a strong internationalization team of its own to effectively execute international programmes, which not only involves professional service staff, but academics from various subjects too, all working together.

Authors:

Dr Julia Wang, Deputy Director of International Relations, Liverpool John Moores University
Professor Charlie Cheng Wu, Director of International, Shanghai Normal University