Cooperation Agreement with Beijing Normal University
Recently the Institute of Philosophy and the Faculty of Humanities have signed a cooperation agreement with the College for Philosophy and Sociology of Beijing Normal University (China).
This agreement formalizes the cooperation with BNU that started some years ago with the arrival of (now) three PhD students from BNU who are preparing their dissertation in Leiden, on a scholarship of the Chinese Scholarship Council.
The agreement comprises the exchange of students and staff. Starting next academic year, promising Leiden MA students can study in Beijing without additional registration costs. Exchange of staff means for Leiden that each year philosophers from Beijing will teach BA and MA seminars. Every two years IPh and BNU will take turns in organizing an international conference in Beijing and Leiden. The first conference will take place in the Spring of 2014 in Beijing, entitled “Beijing-Leiden Conference on Aristotelian virtue ethics”. The parties also agreed to jointly develop teaching and research in comparative philosophy, and to further the dialogue between Chinese and western philosophy.
Contacts have been established with other prominent universities in China as well. In this way the Institute of Philosophy aims at expanding its teaching and research in Western philosophy to philosophies in other parts of the world. In this project IPh cooperates with LIAS and other parties in Leiden University.