Eighteen of the world’s leading universities cooperate to increase capacity, exemplary postgraduate research and teaching through interdisciplinary partnerships.
The programme was launched in 2017 by the British Council. Queen’s University Belfast (UK) and Southeast University (China) act as the Secretariat for the consortium.
Aims
The UKCEER project is designed to promote strategic engagement and bilateral cooperation in joint postgraduate education and engineering research between its partner universities in the UK and China.
The project works to set up sizeable infrastructure to handle challenging research topics and to accelerate mutual technology transfer in energy and manufacturing.
Benefits for the UK and China
Both the UK and China recognise the need to apply shared resources and expertise to overcome some of the world’s major issues which the UKCEER is designed to address.
The work of the consortium will power innovative engineering solutions for the future energy and environmental security of the planet, while growing a generation of top-flight engineering minds to produce research and discovery of truly global impact.
The UKCEER consolidates the strong reputation of the UK’s higher education capability in China. The programme will also reinforce the global perceptions of both countries as centres of technological and engineering excellence.
By strengthening the standing of both countries as international education pioneers, Britain and China will be poised to attract top academic talent in the future.
Priority disciplines
- Energy
- Intelligent manufacturing
Partner universities
The consortium comprises 9 UK Russell Group universities and 9 Chinese Excellence League university members.
UK
- University of Birmingham
- University of Cambridge
- Cardiff University
- University of Leeds
- University of Liverpool
- The University of Nottingham
- Queen’s University Belfast (Lead UK partner)
- University College London (UCL)
- The University of Warwick
China
- Beijing Institute of Technology
- Chongqing University
- Dalian University of Technology
- Harbin Institute of Technology
- Northwestern Polytechnical University
- South China University of Technology
- Southeast University (Lead China partner)
- Tianjin University
- Tongji University
Highlights and progress
Significant achievements and outcomes have demonstrated the impact of the work of the UKCEER across a broad menu of activity, including:
- a Future Engineers’ Leadership and Innovation Academy organised annually, attended by over 80 PhD students since 2017
- staff and Early Career Fellowships have successfully enabled UK researchers to visit Chinese partners to generate research projects
- a UK China Knowledge Exploitation Consortium set up to deliver training, identify industrial needs, technology access and opportunities for knowledge transfer
- transnational staff and student visits and exchanges
- joint PhD programmes
- joint research proposals between partners and with industry
- joint laboratories and manufacturing centres
- joint research funding applications
- joint research publications, books and papers
- thematic workshops, conferences and forums
