Queen Mary expands collaborations in China

The Nanchang course will start in September 2013 and students will receive a BSc in Biomedical Sciences from the University of London after completing four years of study. They will be awarded a medical degree from Nanchang University after a further year of study. Graduates will then be qualified to practise medicine in China, and to develop careers in clinical research in universities, hospitals and industry. ‘Flying professors’ from Queen Mary’s School of Biological and Chemical Sciences and Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry will travel from London to teach approximately half of the course.

Professor Peter Heathcote, from Queen Mary’s School of Biological and Chemical Sciences and Co-director of the joint programme with Nanchang, is looking forward to recruiting Chinese students to this new and exciting programme. Professor Heathcote said: "This is an exciting initiative designed not only to introduce the joint programme students to the latest in biomedical sciences research and techniques, but also to foster collaborative research and initiatives in biomedical sciences, and in clinical research in the medical schools at both institutions."

Nanchang University is one of China’s leading universities, ranked 56 out of 4,000, and home to China’s largest medical school, which has an intake of 2,000 Chinese and up to 100 overseas undergraduates per year. Queen Mary, which is one of the world’s leading research-led universities (RAE 2008), was ranked 11th in the UK for research quality (The Guardian). It was one of the first UK universities to sign an agreement directly with the Chinese government for a ‘double degree’ programme. A set of jointly run degree programmes in telecommunications, systems and networks was launched with BUPT in 2004 from which 500 students graduate each year.

Vice-Principal Professor Jeremy Kilburn explained that following the collaboration with BUPT, Queen Mary had been exploring further opportunities to widen its use of this successful model: “I’m delighted that after several months of careful planning, our collaboration with Nanchang University has been approved by the Chinese Ministry of Education. The joint programme aims to bring together the best aspects of both a Chinese and a UK university education sharing the teaching and design of an innovative programme, which is taught in English, at a top Chinese university."