On April 24, the rector and the dean of EWI, Prof. Peter Apers, visited the University of Science and Technology China (USTC) in Hefei. A report about their experiences.
USTC is one of UT’s main international partners on an institutional level. This means that there exists a strong collaboration in research and educational in several academic fields. Regular board support such strategic partnership. This time, UT’s rector and the president of USTC, Prof. Wan, signed a Double PhD agreement in order to facilitate further research collaboration. The first candidate will soon start the double program under supervision of UT Prof. Jaap van der Vegt (who is also visiting professor at USTC). UT and USTC share two more professors, Louis Winnubst and Henny Bouwmeester (membranes, TNW).
Young talents
Next to the official part of the programme, many interesting research discussions took place with the president and vice president, Prof. Chusheng Chen, who conducted his PhD at UT (Palstra shares his research background with both board members at USTC). Both universities will mutually benefit if young talents team up in order to further intensify the research collaboration between UT and USTC on the long run. More specific, some specific seminars will be organized to identify joint research projects and double PhD candidates this fall. The themes that have been mentioned are e.g. Nanostructured materials, Fluid dynamics, Mathematics & Computer Science.
Photo: signing the double degree PhD agreement with USTC
The rector visited the National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory and the Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale. This second generation source has been optimized for VUV spectroscopies to study in-situ chemical reactions and surfaces.
In the afternoon, Thom Palstra gave a lecture on how to design materials that utilize symmetry and topology to create novel properties to USTC students and staff. The talk was very much appreciated.
USTC was very honored by the visit of Prof. Lohse, Prof. Chao Sun, Yaxing Li, Dr. Stefan Kooij and Dr. Ben Betlem earlier this month. A return visit of the USTC group to UT will be scheduled soon.
This summer, over 15 USTC students will visit CuriousU Summerschool and 4 UT students will visit the USTC summer camps in Physics and Chemistry.
USTC
Established 1958, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) is affiliated to Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS, which has 110 research institutes all over China). The University is ranked on place 103 in the QS world ranking. Find more information about the collaboration between UT and USTC here https://www.utwente.nl/en/organization/collaboration/strategic-partners/ustc/
Dalian
On 25 April, Prof. Palstra paid a visit to Dalian, a ‘mid-size’ city in the north of China of about 6 million inhabitants. Dalian is a sister city of the municipality of Enschede which was represented by Mr. Richard Kokhuis, general director/director Economic affairs. Prof. Maarten van Steen, scientific director of the CTIT research institute at UT, and Richard Kokhuis further explored the opportunities for collaboration in the field of Smart Cities between both triple helixes ‘Municipality – High tech industries – Knowledge institutions’. In this context, a visit was paid to CISCO Dalian and the vice mayor of Dalian, Mr. Liu Yan, in charge of Dalian Economic and Information Commission, have been paid.
Photo: meeting on Smart Cities in Dalian
At Dalian University of Technology (DUT) an institutional wide student exchange agreement has been signed in order to revive the mobility of students between the two sister cities. Especially the collaboration between Prof. Philip Brey and Prof. Wang Qian in the field of Ethics and Technology (4TU – 8TU consortium) and in the field of Chemistry seems to be promising.
CAS
On April 26, the delegation visited to the Dalian institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) where UT professors Guido Mul, Leon Lefferts and Harold Zandvliet have good connections with. It has state of the art instrumentation for surface science and spectroscopies. This institute hosts 1000 PhD candidates and 300 Post docs. UT and this CAS institute agreed to identify students that would like to conduct a double PhD program (partly funded by CSC) is one of the outcomes of the session. This CAS institution is a perfect partner for future collaboration in Dalian.
