UNIVERSITY COLLEGE Dublin signed a landmark agreement with Beijing University of Technology yesterday to set up the Beijing-Dublin International campus which will offer UCD students access to experience in China and boost educational and research links between the institutions.
The first intake of students will start in September 2012, with dual degree programmes in business, science and engineering.
The campus will develop bespoke “study abroad” opportunities for Irish students, and anticipates a total number of 350 students. UCD president Hugh Brady signed the agreement at an event hosted by Beijing mayor Guo Jinlong at City Hall in the Chinese capital, and he said the plan was to scale the joint venture rapidly to full university status.
“The agreement came about very quickly – we started talking about it in August and the first students will come in September next year. The twinning of the cities of Beijing and Dublin was the inspiration, and it gave us the support of the mayor,” said Mr Brady.
Mr Guo held talks with Mr Brady on three occasions in the past year – a significant amount of access to such a senior Chinese official – and he hailed the new campus as a “milestone” in Beijing education.
“This co-operation model is an innovation for the Beijing educational system. It’s the first time to establish a co-operation between a municipal university and a foreign institution to set up a subsidiary campus,” said Mr Guo, who visited Ireland in September as part of the twinning process and was awarded the inaugural Confucius Institute Medal at UCD from Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn.
While Beijing’s main universities, such as Tsinghua, Beijing University and Renmin University, come under the central government’s remit, the technology university is part of the municipal system and is run by the city directly.
The event was also attended by Ambassador Declan Kelleher, who gave a speech in Chinese and revealed that his assistant Lin Zhi was a graduate of the technology university. Also attending the event was Prof Alan Keenan, who managed the development of the campus project. The new Beijing-Dublin International campus will integrate teaching resources and educational models for both universities.
Mr Brady said he hoped the campus would serve as a magnet for both top-quality Chinese and international students, and also function as a high-quality study-abroad location for Irish students wishing to study Chinese language, culture and business.
China is seen as an increasingly important market for Irish education, particularly third-level education, and UCD has been fostering links for many years now.
Belfield already has links with a number of other universities in China, including Peking, Renmin, Fudan, Shanghai Jiaotong and Wuhan universities.
UCD’s school of computer science and informatics runs a BSc in software engineering at Fudan University in Shanghai, as well as postgraduate studies in business and computer science at Suzhou Innovation Park in co-operation with the Suzhou municipal government and Wuhan University.
It also operates the UCD-Shenzhen Institute of Health Science and Innovation with Shenzhen University.
UCD set up the first Confucius Institute in 2006, and its B Comm with Chinese Studies has seen the number of students double in the past five years and as part of their studies students spend a semester or full year in Renmin University or Fudan University.