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By Jiang Yaping, Evan Duggan
VANCOUVER, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Canada and China would both benefit economically and socially from having more Canadian students studying at Chinese universities, said Arvind Gupta, president of the University of British Columbia (UBC).
In a recent interview with Xinhua in his Vancouver office, Gupta said he has just returned from a trip to China, which resulted in several research collaboration agreements, as well as deals to launch four joint degree programs between UBC and China's Peking, Zhejiang, Fudan, and Southwest universities.
Gupta said he saw from his Chinese counterparts a "real willingness, desire and hunger to build more of an international profile for their universities," and UBC can help them down that path, he said.
The Vancouver-based university is among the world's top universities. With 58,000 students at its campuses, UBC was named the 37th top university in the world in 2015 Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings.
Chinese universities were looking for ways to bring UBC students and faculty to their campuses and interact with them. "I think this is a really welcome development that China's universities are becoming integrated into the global network of research-intensive universities," said Gupta.
He said the trip to China helped cement relations between UBC and a network of large schools in China. "We've transcended the relationship of a one-on-one (basis) with seven universities, to an awareness by the broader Chinese society that we have a lot to offer, and I think that offers huge opportunities to us."
Talking about future cooperation, the UBC president said China faces many of the same challenges as Canada in areas such as food security, climate change, demographics and healthcare. Teaming up with faculty and students from UBC could help China's burgeoning universities help to guide Chinese policy and develop solutions.
"I think it's incumbent upon us to build those pathways for UBC students to spend the time in Chinese universities, also Chinese industry, Chinese society," he said. "Understand how to operate in that environment, bring that knowledge back so that as our students go out and get jobs and become contributing members of society, they understand much more about what's happening in Asia. "
Therefore, the exchange of students and faculties would be mutually beneficial, he added.
