The first ever China-UK clinical exchange programme has been agreed by the Universities of Glasgow and Sun Yat-sen.

The programme will see 10 students from each university spend five weeks during the summer in Glasgow and Guangzhou where they will visit hospitals and learn about the challenges faced by health care professionals in their host city.

The agreement was signed by Professor Anton Muscatelli, Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of Glasgow and Professor Ningsheng Xu, President of Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) during a visit by SYSU to Gilmorehill.

Professor Matthew Walters of the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences, who has been leading on the partnership development with SYSU for the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, said: “We are thrilled to be building on our existing links with Sun Yat-sen and very excited about this new exchange programme and the other initiatives.

“This exchange programme is the first of its kind between the UK and China and will give students from both universities a wonderful opportunity to experience medicine in a different social and cultural context and healthcare systems that differ in the challenges that they face. It also helps them to broaden their horizons and develop links with colleagues in other countries.”

Earlier this year the two institutions signed an agreement to develop two jointly-delivered programmes in Public Health and Primary Care, adding to two programmes agreed in 2008: Engineering and Computer Sciences.

The latest agreement will see a further two jointly-delivered programmes in Earth Sciences and Software Engineering added to the portfolio, as well as an Earth Sciences summer school initiative.

A joint symposium on stroke was held in June this year in Guangzhou where the Glasgow team identified four major areas of common interest and now plan to pursue collaborative research.

Professor Anton Muscatelli, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Glasgow, said: “In Sun Yat-sen have we found a partner institution that shares our values and commitment to excellence and as our partnership has developed we have discovered more and more areas where we have common strengths and aligned areas of research.

“We are delighted to deepen our ties and collaboration, which is not only hugely beneficial for students from our two great universities, but illustrative of the advantages of working in partnership internationally. We intend to take significant teaching and research collaborations forward in the near future”

President Ningsheng Xu of the SYSU said: “This was the first official visit of the Sun Yat-sen Presidential delegation to the University of Glasgow. We found the Glasgow to be a great university with a long outstanding history, and a world class institution, which is very attractive to SYSU.

“We were particularly interested by the College of MVLS and the College of Science and Engineering. We were very impressed in the achievement and improvement of the University of Glasgow in the world.

“During the visit we had close contact with the institutes, most notably the Institute for Cardiovascular and Medical Science, and we were also highly impressed with the James Watt Nanofabrication Centre. Glasgow provides world-class research in these fields and we had very active discussions about consolidating existing programmes and expanding on further collaborations.

“I believe we have a great opportunity here, and we should work to achieve significant collaborations. I hope that our collaboration will gradually lead to a strategic partnership.”

 

For more information contact Stuart Forsyth in the University of Glasgow Media Relations Office on 0141 330 4831 or email stuart.forsyth@glasgow.ac.uk

Notes to Editors

Sun Yat Sen University (SYSU) was founded in 1924 by Dr Sun Yat-sen, a world-renowned revolutionary who devoted his life to overthrowing the Qing Dynasty and setting up the Republic of China. Today SYSU is a one of China’s leading comprehensive universities, with 83,633 students studying across four campuses in the Southern cities of Guangzhou and Zhuhai. SYSU is a member of the prestigious ‘Project 211’ and ‘Project 985’ and currently ranked number 18 in China in the Netbig 2012 rankings. SYSU has a particularly strong reputation in both Medical Sciences and Engineering, and a growing network of international partners, including Oxford, MIT, University of Tokyo and NUS.

First published: 23 July 2013

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