Welcome to SBC and thank you for choosing to study with us. In doing so, you have not only chosen a key provider of international higher education, located in one of the most exciting cities and countries in the world, but you have also placed yourself at the centre of a prestigious network of universities involved in an innovative and unique Sino-British collaboration.

Each year the College welcomes around 500 students attracted by the scope, rigour, and relevance of our programmes and the enormous opportunities they offer. Whether you have chosen to follow a degree course in engineering or in business, you will be supported by committed and experienced teaching, research, administrative and technical colleagues. They offer you a breadth of experience and support covering all aspects of the curriculum and the world of work beyond your degree. SBC provides a resource for industry and businesses regionally, nationally and internationally. Our collaborating institutions, USST in China and 9 UK partner universities in the United Kingdom, are also important resources supporting the educational journey you are beginning now.

To achieve a degree obviously demands hard work and considerable amounts of your own time. It cannot, and should not, be any other way, but we are here to help. My colleagues and I are committed to ensuring that your association with the College is enjoyable, successful and, I hope, as one of our future alumni, long-standing. I’m sure you will establish many lifelong friendships and future professional contacts.

In addition to doing all we can to ensure you are successful academically, we will also encourage you to develop particular attributes linked to three overarching themes within the College, i.e. those relating to ‘responsible leadership’ (linked to the fact that SBC is a signatory to the United Nations initiative of Principles for Responsible Management Education), ‘enterprise and innovation’ and, finally, ‘cultural empathy’. These principles are important to each of us as individuals and to society and your mastery of them will also greatly enhance your future employment prospects.

The College is committed to facilitating and responding to feedback and, to this end, formal mechanisms have been established but please do not hesitate to convey your views directly to me should you wish to do so. 

As the Executive Dean of SBC, I wish you every success and look forward to beginning our SBC journey together.

Executive Dean’s Biography - Professor Laura Corvinelli Bishop

Professor Laura Corvinelli Bishop became the Executive Dean of SBC in January 2026. She came to SBC from a background in research, international education and academic administration.

A native New Yorker, she was educated at Yale College and awarded a BA in Anthropology in 1984. Following a brief period working in the legal profession, she returned to her first academic interest and was awarded a PhD in Anthropology from Yale University in 1994. Her doctoral research examined the environments in which early humans evolved in Africa, which remains her research focus. She conducted extensive field research in eastern and southern Africa following initial archaeological training in Europe. Her first post-doctoral training opportunity was with the New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology, and she worked at New York University under Professor Terry Harrison from 1994-1995.

In 1995 her research project with Professor Bernard Wood was awarded funding from The Leverhulme Trust, a charitable funding body in the UK, and she crossed the Atlantic to be a postdoctoral research assistant at the University of Liverpool. She remained in Liverpool, moving to a permanent lectureship at Liverpool John Moores University in 1999.

Her initial focus at LJMU was teaching and research, and she was promoted to Reader in 2007 and Professor in 2011. She co-founded LJMU’s Research Centre in Evolutionary Anthropology in 2004. She also served as Programme Leader and Subject Leader, stimulating her interest in academic leadership in higher education. Her research interests in human evolution led to her involvement with the AESOP (A European and South African Partnership on Heritage and Past) Erasmus Mundus and AESOP+ Erasmus Plus Projects, where LJMU was the only UK partner of 11 European Universities working with 9 South African Universities to provide overseas educational opportunities for postgraduate students.

As a first-generation University graduate, Professor Bishop is an active advocate for the transformative potential of higher education, emphasising the power of internationalisation to improve outcomes in students’ academic and personal lives. In 2015, she shifted her professional focus towards international education, becoming Associate Dean for Global Engagement in her academic faculty. In this role she engaged in a successful programme to expand LJMU’s transnational education profile and increase student engagement with international study opportunities. She was the Principal of SBC from September 2018 to December 2021 and then returned to LJMU in 2022 as Pro Vice Chancellor for the Faculty of Science. She was Vice Provost for Research and Knowledge Exchange at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China from September 2024 to December 2025.

Professor Bishop is the author of more than 70 scholarly publications on her research She is committed to the mentorship of young scientists and early career researchers. She has been a Role Model for the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education’s (now Advance HE) Aurora Women’s Leadership Programme. As a co-founder of LJMU’s Women Professors Network and a member of Athena Swan Working Groups, she has promoted equality and diversity in all aspects of academic life.

Email: laura.bishop@sbc.usst.edu.cn