Campus news

Campus launches partnership with Tsinghua University

By José Rodríguez

Students and faculty at UC Berkeley will be able to collaborate and exchange academic materials with their counterparts at Tsinghua University in Beijing, thanks to a historic agreement signed by Chancellor Robert Birgneau on his recently concluded trip to Asia.

Chancellor Birgeneau at signing ceremony

Chancellor Birgeneau and Tsinghua University President Chen Jining after signing the historic partnership agreement. (photo courtesy of Tsinghua
University)

The two universities pledged broadly through the next five years to identify and create scholarly opportunities for faculty, post-doctoral scholars and students through such activities as joint conferences, programs, internships, field work and study sessions. These activities will be initiated by faculty members and seeded by funds, awarded on a competitive basis, from the Tsinghua-Berkeley Fund. The two universities will also create joint centers to facilitate the development of joint projects and provide regular coordination for the exchanges.

The Berkeley-Tsinghua partnership is the culmination of long-standing ties between the two universities. These ties exist in several schools and disciplines including engineering, environmental design and psychology.

“As a public university, we see the Tsinghua-Berkeley partnership representing our first major international commitment in China,” said Birgeneau at the signing ceremony held in Beijing. “With it, we would like to initiate a new pattern of American university presence in China. This presence will be about the pragmatic creation of common educational benefits for the students of Berkeley and Tsinghua. It will also be about the incremental enhancement of opportunities for trans-national and cross-cultural research and learning.”

Also attending the signing ceremony and making remarks was U.S. Ambassador to China Gary Locke.

In a press release issued by the Tsinghua University, Chen Jining, the university’s president, pointed to the history of cooperation between the two universities.

“I hope that in the future our two institutions will continue to expand our cooperation, and promote connections and exchange between faculty and students,” he said.

UC Berkeley has also established the Tsinghua-Berkeley Fund to receive donations to support activities in the partnership.

For more information, visit the Tsinghua University News website.