KI visits China to welcome alumni

The launch of KI Alumni China – Karolinska Institutet’s alumni network in China – continues. During the week, members of the KI management attend receptions in China for some 100 alumni.

Last spring, the university launched KI Alumni China, its first organised international alumni network, with an event on the Solna campus. A week of events, this time on Chinese soil, commenced on Saturday 13 October. Among other things the program includes an official ceremony to celebrate the launch of the network and to gather together KI alumni in their home nation.

“This is our way of showing appreciation for KI alumni in China, who are important ambassadors for KI,” says Karin Dahlman-Wright, KI vice-president and member of the delegation. “We want to give them an opportunity to meet each other, and ourselves an opportunity to discuss topical issues with our alumni on their home ground, and find out how we can best develop the alumni role and the alumni network for the future.”

She hopes that the alumni network in China will enhance KI’s profile as an internationally leading medical university that competes on the global arena for talent and resources.

Reception dinners, symposia and fairs

The week’s programme includes three reception dinners and symposia in Peking, Shanghai and Jinan (at Shandong University), where most alumni live. KI will also have a presence at student recruitment fairs. Amongst the non-academic participants will be representatives of Sweden’s Consulate-General in Shanghai and the Chinese NHC National Health Commission.

“For me and other KI alumni in China, this launch week means that we now have an official KI alumni network that gives us close ties to the university, not only virtually but also face-to-face,” says Wenli Claire Ye, KI’s alumni ambassador in China, who studied for a master’s in Bioentrepreneurship at KI between 2008 and 2010.

Today, Claire Ye is marketing and product manager at a recently opened private hospital in Shanghai. She hopes that the network will one day serve as a strong bridge linking KI, the alumni and different healthcare-related sectors of society (industry, academia, public sector).

Strengthening the bond between KI and the alumni

Marianne Schultzberg, dean of doctoral research at KI, is also in the delegation. She sees the event in China as an important step for strengthening the bond between KI and the alumni as future partners and doctoral supervisors.

“As well as thanking them for having done their doctoral education/postdoc period at KI, we hope to find out how we can support them in their continuing careers. The alumni network is vital to KI’s doctoral education through the new China-KI doctoral students who are already being – and will continue to be – engaged in collaborations between the alumni and their former supervisors at KI, or other researchers at KI with whom they were in contact during their time with us,” she says.

Networks are essential

According to alumni coordinator Megan Osler, the launch event in China is a symbolically important step for KI towards meeting its internationalisation goals.

“Networks are essential in our professional lives. With this official recognition, we properly celebrate the establishment of the KI alumni China network with our alumni,” she says.

Also participating in the week-long event, along with several researchers, will be international coordinator Katarina Drakenberg, docent and China-coordinator Nailin Li, and KI student Chenfei Frank Ning.