RENEWAL OF THE TRILATERAL AGREEMENT OF RESEARCH AND EDUCATION COLLABORATION BETWEEN

The Department of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Tsinghua University

 The School of Life Sciences , Xiamen University

and  

The Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore

An MOU for Trilateral Collaborative Research Agreement among the Departments of Biological Sciences of Tsinghua University, Xiamen University and the National University of Singapore was signed on 27 March 2000 in Singapore, in conjunction with the First Sino-Singapore Symposium on Recent Progress in Biotechnology. The trilateral research agreement supports joint research projects among the three partner universities that include funding for joint research projects, short-term attachment and exchange of academic staff and graduate students, organization of conferences and more recently, the teaching of Structural Biology of NUS staff at Xiamen University. The Singapore Hokkien Foundation, the Singapore Rubber Millers Association and Lee Foundation have jointly supported these activities generously.

On 10 July 2005, this agreement was renewed for another 5 years. The renewal of MOU was witnessed at the School of Life Sciences Conference Hall of the Xiamen University and signed by Prof. Zhou Hai Meng, Vice Secretary General , Department of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Tsinghua University, Prof. Lin Sheng Cai, Dean, School of Life Sciences, Xiamen University and Prof. Hew Choy Leong, Head, Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore

In the past 5 years, the MOU has resulted in :

1. Annual Sino-Singapore Symposia with the Schools and Departments of Life Sciences from most of the top Chinese universities. The coming 6th Symposium will be hosted by Fudan University in Nov 2005 in Shanghai. The 6 th Sino-Singapore Symposium will include the participation of Peking University, Tsinghua University, Fudan University, Nankai University, Wuhan University, Zhongshan University and first-time participants this year, Nanjing University,  Shanghai University, Jiaotong University and possibly Zhenjiang University. From a modest beginning, the Sino-Singapore Symposium Series it is now a major event that provides us the platform to interact with fellow life scientists in China.

2. The establishment of an open lab in Xiamen University jointly set up between Xiamen University and NUS. The Open Lab, with a lab space of 200 sq metres and built with RMB $ 5 million funding support from China’s Ministry of Education and maintenance support Xiamen’s School of Life Sciences, is now completely renovated. At least 6 NUS professors in the field of Life Sciences will be engaged with joint research and joint graduate student supervision at this Open Lab in the areas of proteomics, bioinformatics, structural biology and bioimaging. Xiamen University will also be sending top students to NUS for exchange programmes.

MOU signing ceremony

Open Lab