The Department has signed a new collaboration agreement with Northwestern Polytechnical University (NWPU) in Xi'an, China. A general collaboration agreement linking Queen Mary with NWPU has been supplemented by a specific agreement between the School of Science and the School of Materials in Xi'an with the Department of Materials here in London. The agreement was signed at a formal ceremony attended by Paul Hogg from Queen Mary and Yuan Jianping, Vice President of NWPU in Xian on November 17th, this year.

At first this link will add NWPU to the list of top Chinese universities who can send onto students to our undergraduate programmes, but it is anticipated that strong research links will follow. It is also expected that a selected group of the top students from NWPU will come to London to study for their PhD every year.

As part of the agreement, Academic Staff from Queen Mary will visit Xi'an on a regular basis to provide input to their teaching programme. This has already started with both James Busfield and Ray Smith visiting in Decemeber and providing several lectures on rubber and plastics.

NWPU is a fast growing University with a total student population approaching 30,000 and it boasts one of the strongest Materials units in the country. On the basis of size and output it is ranked joint third with Harbin Institute of Technology.

The formalising of our links with NWPU has been assisted by Professor Fu from the School of Materials and Professor Wang from the School of Science who both spent several months at Queen Mary last year. Their help is greatly appreciated!