From
http://www.ara.cat/politica/Artur_Mas-Xina-govern_xines-Mare_Nostrum-universitats_0_925707669.html (in Catalan)
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Catalan President Artur Mas with Wan Gang, Chinese Minister of Science and Technology (picture from the website of Ara.cat)[/caption]
The President of
Catalan government,
Artur Mas, and the
Chinese Minister of Science and Technology,
Wan Gang (万钢), have recently met in
Barcelona. The main interests of
Wan Gang's visit were to know first hand the
ALBA Synchrotron, the first one of its kind and located in
Cerdanyola del Vallès (
Barcelona province), as well as the
Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, also considered as a reference centre not only in
Spain but also in
Europe. President
Artur Mas was sided by
Roger Albinyana, Secretary of Foreign Affairs and European Union, and by
Antoni Castellà, Secretary for Universities and Research.
Thanks to the agreements with the
Spanish Secretary of State for R+D,
Carmen Vela, the
scientific collaboration between these two countries is expected to tighten in fields such as
biotechnology,
health and
life sciences and
environment. It is expected that
Spanish researchers would be able to work in facilities like the
Shanghai particle accelerator (上海光源) whereas the
Chinese ones would be able to do it in the
ALBA Synchrotron.
Another subject that has been dealt during
Wan Gang's visit is the exchange of students between the
Catalan and
Chinese universities. In the next academic term the
Catalan government will open an office to specifically advise the students coming from
China, something that both the
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the
Universitat Pompeu Fabra already have in
China. Nowadays, 3% of the foreign students in
Catalonia come from
China and the goal is to double this percentage in the next few years.
Between March 11th and 14th, 2013, representatives of the
Catalan government and of the main universities of
Catalonia travelled to
Hong Kong to attend for the first time the annual conference of the
Asia Pacific Association for International Education,
APAIE, the most important university fair in
Asia and one of the most prominent in the world. The goal of this mission was to promote the internationalization of the
Catalan university and research systems under the brand
Study in Catalonia.
Asian Summer Film Festival (image from Arkham Studio website)[/caption]
