Warwick signs up to Engineering Partnership with China

The University of Warwick has signed up to a new initiative which will see UK universities help China become a manufacturing superpower.

The universities’ Engineering departments, including Warwick’s School of Engineering, will collaborate with China’s top nine Engineering institutions in order to improve the country’s research and teaching in the field of engineering. It is also hoped that the initiative will encourage further Anglo-Chinese collaborations in research and education.

Alongside Warwick, other top UK universities participating include: Queen’s University Belfast (which is leading the initiative), the University of Birmingham, Cardiff University, the University of Nottingham and University College London, all of which are renowned for their excellence in engineering teaching and research.

The initiative is supported by the British Council and will be funded by the government’s Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, which has agreed to grant the initiative £200 000.

Professor Jihong Wang, a Professor of Electrical Power & Control Engineering in the University of Warwick’s School of Engineering, comments: “The world is facing global engineering challenges, not just in my own area of power generation, control and storage, but across a range of technologies.

“We need partnerships such as these that pull together the best minds in the UK and Chinese engineering research to take on those challenges and to make a real, positive, difference to our daily lives.”

Warwick’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor in Research, Professor Pam Thomas, adds: “Warwick’s Global Research Priorities programme covers a range of topics and addresses some of the most challenging problems facing the world today including: new materials, sustainable cities, energy and innovative manufacturing.

“Engineering innovation will be key to addressing a great many of these priorities. Forming partnerships between some of the leading engineers in the UK and China is another significant step in taking a global approach to these issues.”