Faculty of Science reinforces collaboration in China
The Faculty of Science has reinforced the collaboration in China during a group trip late November. Representatives from four institutes visited ten Chinese top universities and interviewed over 130 students in PhD workshops in Beijing and Shanghai.
Fifty PhD positions
The Faculty of Science offered fifty PhD positions specifically focused on Chinese CSC students. CSC PhD’s are selected by both sides and will receive funding from the Chinese Scholarship Council.
Workshops
In the PhD workshop, four representatives interviewed 134 students, of wich 56 good to excellent candidates were recommended to different clusters of the institutes. A large number of excellent Chinese PhD candidates are expected to join the faculty in September next year.
Succes
‘The PhD fair was successful, with many very good and even excellent candidates,’ said Prof. Arnold Tukker. Delegates from other institutes also indicated that the quality of students were pleasantly surprising, and that the one-on-one interviews were important to meet and select the best candidates.
Next year
‘The faculty is really happy with this trip’, concluded Geert de Snoo, Dean of Faculty of Science. ‘It was an amazing achievement, next year we will definitely organise another trip like this, and institutes who were not present this trip will also be invited next time.’ He also indicated that solid follow-ups were arranged to enhance the new joint research portfolios and the development of other programmes.
The delegation
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Prof. Arnold Tukker, Scientific director of Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML)
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Dr. Marcello Bonsangue, Director of education of Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS)
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Dr. Remko Offringa, Director of education of Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL)
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Dr. Gerard van Westen, representative of Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR)
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Yun Tian, China coordinator Faculty of Science
Universities visited by the delegation
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Tsinghua University
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Xi’an Jiaotong University
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Fudan University
Universities individually visited
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Peking University
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University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC)
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Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU)
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Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT)
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Shanghai Jiaotong University (SJTU)
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East China Normal Uni
The delegates joined over thirty meetings at the partner universities, during which six joint research portfolios were developed. Four shared PhD students will come to Leiden soon. Finally, the delegation initialised three visiting professorships and ten joint PhDs programmes together with the counterparts in China.