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Ryerson University has signed agreements with two preeminent universities in China, which will serve to strengthen research collaboration and pave the way for future student exchanges and academic program development.

“Ryerson’s new and emerging relationships with some of China’s most prestigious academic institutions are helping to accelerate our university’s global impact,” said Alan Shepard, provost and vice president academic, who led the academic mission. “We are creating exciting exchange and research opportunities for students and researchers in mutual fields of interest to both China and Canada.”


During the five-day mission, which began late November, Shepard and his team met with senior university officials from various leading universities as well as government representatives and toured university campuses and their laboratory facilities as a way to deepen academic ties between Ryerson and China.

Formal agreements were signed between Ryerson and Communication University of China (CUC), a leading institution with a strong focus in broadcasting and media, and Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), ranked among the top 100 universities worldwide in engineering, technology and computer science.

The mission built on earlier research relationships established between Ryerson faculty members and their Chinese counterparts. Two of the Ryerson researchers who have worked with the institutions were present as Ryerson signed formal agreements with their Chinese counterparts.

Previous connections forged by Ling Guan, Canada Research Chair in Multimedia and Computer Technology, were formalized through three signed agreements with Chinese University of Communications (CUC) and member MLeague. One agreement will facilitate joint research between CUC’s Key Lab of Media Audio & Video and the Ryerson Multimedia Research Lab.

The China mission also formalized the collaboration begun earlier between James Li of Ryerson’s civil engineering department and Harbin Institute of Technology.

Shepard also announced the offer of four international fellowships at Ryerson’s Digital Media Zone, which will be awarded to students at the CUC and Nanjing University in 2012. Discussions are also underway with other leading institutions in China that share research interests in emerging fields such as sustainable water resource management; aerospace, mechanical and industrial engineering; and medical physics.