Jointly spearheaded by the British Council, Universities UK, and the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Education, with a view to undertaking collaborative world-leading research in 3 broad thematic areas- Advanced Manufacturing, Environmental Engineering & Healthcare, the consortium draws its impetus from the Chinese government’s ‘World-Class Universities and First-Class Disciplines’ initiative, which seeks to develop several of its institutions into world-class universities by 2020. Jiangsu province, ranked second in terms of GDP out of China’s 23 provinces, has been earmarked as being key to these ambitions and is already home to several of the UK’s flagship ‘one-to-one’ higher education collaborations, such as Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou.
Currently there are 13 UK members and 23 Jiangsu members. The University of Liverpool is the UK Chair of the Consortium and facilitates coordination and communication between members, organises activities and plans projects with the Jiangsu Chair.
