A new Joint College for Chinese Studies

Today I attended the signing of a new agreement with Beijing Normal University. The agreement, signed by our VC and the President of BNU, lays the foundations for the development of a new Joint College, the Beijing Normal-Cardiff Chinese College.
This College will be home to a flagship programme, a dual degree in Chinese Studies, with students spending two years in Cardiff and two in Beijing. The Chinese government has previously supported the establishment of such joint Colleges only in China; a joint College elsewhere will be a ‘world first’ for Cardiff.
Colleagues from the School of Modern Languages and the International Office have worked hard to develop this key relationship, and the meeting today gave the opportunity to reaffirm our commitment. I am grateful to Richard Cotton (Director of the University’s International Office), Professor Claire Gorrara (Head of MLANG) and Professor Ken Hamilton (AHSS Dean for International) for visiting BNU with me earlier this year and helping to develop the proposal for the Joint College.

A Cardiff delegation will visit Beijing early in 2015 in order to develop fully the new degree programme.