AsianScientist (Nov. 13, 2015) – University of New South Wales (UNSW) and China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) will establish a joint innovation hub in advanced materials for the space age.
Unveiled by the Premier of New South Wales The Honorable Mike Baird at a special ceremony in Shanghai, the partnership builds on the successful US$1 million Collaborative Investment Fund established by the two universities in 2013.
“This new venture will leverage UNSW and SJTU’s reputations as world leaders in advanced materials and it connects our research with one of the world’s largest and rapidly growing industry clusters in space technology and astronautics,” said UNSW President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Jacobs.
“The innovation hub will emphasize the complementary nature of the wider Australia China knowledge partnership by capitalizing on Australia’s expertise and China’s growing world-class excellence in the field with China’s rapid advances in galactic space exploration,” Jacobs said.
Critically, the innovation hub will be fully supported by the well-established partnership between the UNSW and SJTU technology transfer offices to ensure that the project outputs are connected to joint networks of industry partners and potential commercialization partners in both Australia and China.
“The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development forecasts that China will overtake the United States as the world’s largest investor in science, technology and research by 2019 and its R&D investment already equates to 2.2 percent of China’s GDP. This is likely to radically alter the size and shape of the world’s innovation system and Australia needs to be at the table if it is to maintain its position as a globally competitive knowledge power,” Jacobs said.
“This gives a NSW-based research institution a prime position at the forefront of China’s space development program and places knowledge exchange in this highly competitive area at the forefront of the emerging research relationship between Australia and China.”
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Source: University of New South Wales.
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