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A delegation from Perth's sister city Nanjing visited The University of Western Australia yesterday, meeting UWA Vice-Chancellor Professor Alan Robson, Nobel Laureate Professor Barry Marshall and other senior University staff.

The delegation, led by Deputy Mayor of the Nanjing Municipal People's Government, Mr Zhao Xiaojiang, included vice-presidents of two Nanjing universities, government officials and the President of Nanjing Iron and Steel.

Nanjing is the capital of Jiangsu province, on China's east coast.  Jiangsu is the nation's second wealthiest province and has the most tertiary institutions of any province in China.

UWA has longstanding collaborative research projects and student exchanges with several Nanjing institutions, in particular Nanjing University (NJU) and the Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital (which is affiliated with the Medical School of NJU).

"The University of Western Australia is keen to take advantage of this opportunity to strengthen ties with Nanjing and to promote its international reputation for excellence in China," said Professor Robson.

"We are already aware of many valuable opportunities for cooperation between universities that will bring great benefits to both China and Western Australia and were pleased to host the delegation of senior officials."

Professor Robson said Chinese universities had shown strong interest in water resource issues, education, biomedicine, bioenergy, environmental microbiology and animal biology.  The University of Western Australia was already encouraging students enrolled at UWA to consider completing appropriate units of their courses in China.

UWA has a memorandum of understanding with NJU (a fellow member of the Worldwide Universities Network and with the Medical School of Nanjing University.  An agreement was recently signed for the establishment of a Joint Centre for Bone and Joint Research in Nanjing.

Media references

Janine MacDonald (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 5563  /  (+61 4) 32 637 716