On 25 October, Professor Colin Bailey, President and Principal of Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), and Professor Wang Wen, Vice-President of QMUL, visited the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology (USST). Professor Robert Anthony Cryan, Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of the University of Huddersfield, and his delegation also visited USST. Zhao Zhen, President of USST, met separately with the two delegations. Cai Yonglian, Vice President of USST and Dean of the Sino-British College (SBC), and heads of the International Affairs Office and the Sino-British College accompanied the meetings.
When meeting with the Queen Mary delegation, President Zhao extended a warm welcome to Professor Bailey on his return visit after ten years. He noted that Professor Bailey was a special guest at USST’s 110th anniversary celebrations and the 10th anniversary of SBC in 2016. This year marks both USST’s 120th anniversary and SBC’s 20th anniversary, and Professor Bailey’s visit once again reflects the strong foundation and shared vision of the two universities’ partnership. President Zhao introduced USST’s century-long heritage and its distinctive international profile, noting that Queen Mary, as a world-renowned research university, has extensive experience and a strong track record in Sino-British cooperative education. He expressed the hope that the two institutions would leverage SBC’s one-to-N consortium model to advance faculty and student exchanges, joint teaching, and research collaboration, actively develop high-level cooperative education programmes, and explore diversified joint education models, fostering a new paradigm of international higher education cooperation through curriculum co-development, research synergy, and cultural integration.
In meeting with Professor Cryan of the University of Huddersfield, President Zhao welcomed the delegation and noted that since SBC’s founding in 2006, it has worked closely with Huddersfield and other UK partners to continuously introduce high-quality overseas educational resources and strengthen its talent cultivation. The College has received the “Outstanding Contribution Award” and “2025 Outstanding Sino-Foreign Cooperative Education Institution” from the Chinese-foreign Joint Education Committee (CJEC), and its achievements have been hailed as “a successful model of Sino-British educational cooperation.” President Zhao expressed gratitude to Huddersfield for its longstanding support and looked forward to Professor Cryan’s continued commitment to SBC’s long-term development.
Professor Bailey and Professor Cryan thanked USST for its warm hospitality and jointly congratulated the university on its 120th anniversary and SBC on its 20th anniversary. Both reflected on their institutions’ collaborative history with USST, spoke highly of the USST’s strengths and SBC’s achievements, and pledged to deepen bilateral cooperation, further expand faculty and student exchanges and research collaboration, and build more high-quality international platforms.
The same day, Professor Bailey and Professor Cryan attended the International Symposium of University Presidents marking USST’s 120th anniversary. Professor Bailey delivered an address as a special guest, and Professor Cryan gave a keynote address titled “20 Years of Internationalisation of Higher Education” and attended SBC’s 20th anniversary events.
During the meetings, USST held practical discussions with both Queen Mary and Huddersfield on building high-level cooperative education programmes, research and innovation, and two-way faculty and student exchanges. The visits mark a new starting point for deepening USST’s partnerships with UK institutions. The university will use this opportunity to steadily advance high-level cooperative education, joint postgraduate programmes, student exchanges, summer schools, faculty visits, and joint research, continually expanding its global network and enhancing the quality and effectiveness of international cooperation to support its high-level internationalisation and create broader international opportunities for faculty and students.
Meeting with Queen Mary University of London’s President and Vice-President
Meeting with the University of Huddersfield’s Vice-Chancellor
