The agreement with Shaoxing University, which is located in the province of Zhejiang, establishes the support of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) in setting up a technology transfer centre at the Chinese university to promote and strengthen collaboration in research and knowledge transfer between the institutions. The project, which is promoted and funded by the Shaoxing City Council and supported by businesses in the area, is looking to promote research and economic development in this region of China in strategic fields such as textile engineering and civil engineering. A dozen research projects have been identified, and they will be coordinated by the UPC and carried out by researchers from the two institutions.

In the framework of the agreement, an institutional visit to the Chinese university to organise a seminar on innovation and research valorisation with a view to promoting an innovation ecosystem in the region is foreseen for mid-January. The UPC’s visit also intends to establish the foundations for the joint research projects.

The signing of this agreement will also promote the University’s presence in a region of China in which collaborative projects with other higher education institutions have already been set up: the Sino-Spanish Campus, a joint university initiative by the UPC, the Technical University of Madrid and Tongji University that was the first Spanish university campus in China and is a platform for promoting higher education and research in engineering, technology and applied science, as well as knowledge transfer and cultural exchange; and the academic cooperation agreements with Ningbo University, including a double-degree agreement in the field of naval and ocean engineering, which will now be extended to biosystems and agri-food engineering, linking the Barcelona School of Nautical Studies (FNB) and the Barcelona School of Agricultural Engineering (ESAB), respectively, to the institution in China.