Visit to Shandong consolidates academic partnership

[NEWS 2013-11-05] KI's partnership with Shandong University in China has been operative for many years and is still being developed, as was made clear at a joint symposium on 4 November 2013 in Shandong. The symposium and the following alumni reception attracted 50 or so former students and staff from KI.

"Activities such as this, at which researchers present their current projects and fields of inquiry are vital to the growth of international collaborations," says Dean of Education Professor Jan-Olov Höög, who is heading the KI delegation to Shandong. "It's time to take a step forward in our partnership with Shandong University."

He continues: "It's important to the development of research and education to present new ideas and implement them. Since we operate in a world where competition for pole position amongst universities is just getting tougher and tougher, we have no choice but to collaborate."

KI is productive with researchers at Shandong University as regards co-publications in China, where KI has its largest alumni network.

"Our relationship with Shandong is a solid one since it has grown from the bottom up," says docent Dr Nailin Li, one of KI's three academic coordinators for China.

At present, the research partnership covers four fields, which were presented at the symposium. One of them is led by Yihai Cao, Sweden's first Chinese professor of medicine, who was appointed to a chair in vascular biology, specialising in angiogenesis regulation, in 2004. One of his doctoral students, Mei Dong from Shandong University, talked of her research in Professor Cao's laboratory at KI.

One characteristic feature of successful collaborations on knowledge generation is the will to cooperate, and here in Shandong this exists at all levels. University president Rong Zhang, who took up his post only a fortnight ago, was one of those whom the KI delegation had the opportunity to meet.

"We're old friends, and are now ready to take our relationship to the next level," said Professor Nan Zou, director of international relations at Shandong. "We can work together in different ways and have therefore presented different options for how to proceed. We hope that we can help create a platform for our researchers and students."

Alumni reunion - KI Alumni & Friends

KI's former and current students and staff constitute an enormous network of competencies, contacts and experiences from all corners of the globe, a strength that KIs alumni coordinators seek to take full advantage of. KI Alumni & Friends operates to create and reinforce life-long relationships between university and alumni.

"We have to have a presence there, as the alumni groups we have in China, Singapore and elsewhere need more than the support we can give them from home," says Alexandra Ehring, alumni coordinator at the Communications and Public Relations Office.

Seminar for students on campus

A seminar is to be arranged on Tuesday 5 November 2013 for 1st-cycle students to encourage recruitment to Karolinska Institutet's English-language Master's programmes. Alumni Wenju Li and Wei Ma will be talking about their studies at Karolinska Institutet, and Jenny Enblom from the Education Support Office will be giving information about the Master's programmes offered in English at Karolinska Institutet.

KI and Shandong University

• Co-authored papers, 76 between 2008 and October 2013.
• A bilateral agreement on teacher/student exchanges in public health at Bachelors and Masters level was entered into in 2010 and will remain in effect until the autumn semester of 2015.
• Doctoral students: 47 doctoral students from Shandong University have either been awarded their PhD at KI or spent much of their doctoral education at KI, according to figures from Shandong University.
• Alumni: A network of 82 KI alumni in Shandong was established in January 2013.

• More information about Shandong University
• View KI's strategic plan for research collaboration with China as submitted to the Swedish Research Council
• KI Alumni & Friends

For questions, please contact:

• Contact the Press Office at KI