The College of Humanities delegation met with Fudan's Faculty of Chinese.

Successful trip to China results in a wide range of collaborations across Humanities and the University

In late October a delegation representing the College of Humanities including Professor Emma Cayley, Dr Corinna Wagner, Dr Zhiguang Yin and Mr Richard Foord, travelled to China with the aim of deepening international cooperation with Peking University (PKU) and Fudan University in Shanghai. 

The visit from 23 - 30 October built on previous visits by Humanities including a trip in March 2015 as part of the Vice Chancellor’s delegation, to establish formal agreements over cooperation with PKU and Fudan University.

At Peking University the delegation met with the faculties of Foreign Languages (SFL), Chinese and History. Meetings were also held with the School of Law, and NISC (the National Institute of Strategic Communication). Among other concrete plans, an Academic Forum from 15-17 April 2016 with SFL was agreed. Staff and student visits, and plans for a Beijing Forum sub panel, a PhD forum at Exeter in History, and a double PhD in History were discussed.

At Fudan University, the delegation met with Fudan’s Faculty of Chinese, the College of Foreign Languages and Literature, and Department of History. It was agreed to progress plans for a double Masters degree in Comparative Literature with Fudan’s Faculty of Chinese on the model of the Business School agreement with Fudan Economics. Also with Chinese the details of a November 2016 colloquium at Fudan were discussed. This event was agreed as an annual event to rotate around four partner institutions including Exeter and CUHK. Of many discussions with CFLL, of note are the Fudan-Exeter visiting lecturer programme which takes place for the first time in Fudan next March, run by Dr Wagner, and involving four Exeter-based staff; and the third Fudan-Exeter colloquium involving Modern Languages and English which will take place at Exeter in early October 2016. Other plans that were progressed on this trip include staff and student exchange agreements, and a 2+2 articulation agreement in Spanish. The recent visit of Fudan History to Exeter provided a context for further fruitful discussions about current and future collaborations with Humanities at Exeter.

In addition there was discussion with both partners of a joint grant bid that has been submitted to the British Council under the UK-China Partnership Innovation fund scheme. This collaborative bid will provide a model for other such joint applications planned in the future.

Professor Andrew Thorpe, Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Executive Dean of the College of Humanities commented, “This was a crucial visit to maintain, strengthen, and grow our multiple existing areas of collaboration across Humanities and the wider institution with various schools and faculties in our partner institutions. The level of research and educational activity in both directions is now so high that we are welcomed with open arms by our partners and consequently we are able to progress agreements and achieve concrete outcomes which benefit us both.”

Date: 18 November 2015

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