This year, under the national ‘World Class’ university initiative, substantial funding has been allocated by some provincial governments to support a number of universities to improve their position in the national and university world rankings by 2020. These universities see internationalisation and collaboration with foreign HE institutions as an integral part of their plans to become ‘World Class’. Guangdong and Jiangsu provinces are the most advanced in their plans to initiate the ‘World Class’ University Initiative.

Opportunity

To participate in a higher education scoping visit to engage with China’s “World Class” universities initiative in Jiangsu and Guangdong Province, focusing on establishing joint research, postgraduate transnational education (TNE) programmes and postgraduate training collaboration in healthcare, advanced manufacturing, creative and environmental sectors.

UK institutions are only able to participate in the programme in one province, and must therefore either select Guangdong or Jiangsu.

The Jiangsu programme will take place in Nanjing on Tuesday 14 and Wednesday 15 March 2017. The Guangdong programme will take place in Guangzhou on Thursday 16 and Friday 17 March.

The Department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is providing £120,000 in funding for the ‘Regional and Provincial – Partnerships for Excellence’ project, which is part of the ‘UK-China Knowledge Economy Education Partnership (KEEP)’ programme.

The funding will be allocated as a travel grant of up to £10,000 to 12 UK HE institutions of which six will visit Jiangsu and six will visit Guangdong in China.

The funding is intended to:

• Build regional initiatives linking UK’s higher education sector to China’s government, education and business communities
• Leverage key domestic Chinese reforms, specifically ‘Made in China 2025’, ‘Healthy China 2030’, and the ‘World Class Universities Initiative’ to initiate programmes that will boost research, innovation and academic opportunities.

The bidding for the fund is now open to UK organisations and institutions involved in international education who are interested in this opportunity.