Who we are

The MoU launching the Sino-Spanish Campus (S-SC) activities was signed in May 2012 as the logical continuation of the relationships between Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) and several main Chinese universities, and in particular with Tongji University, which have been regularly taken place since 2004. Parties in the S-SC MoU are Tongji University, Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), Tecnológico de Monterrey (TEC) and UPM.
The mission of the S-SC is to increase and consolidate the academic relationships in education, research and innovation between the participating universities, and through them, the relationships between China, Spain and Latin America. The S-SC founding members, UPM, UPC and Tongji University, are three prestigious technology-oriented universities with the ability of contributing together to the resolution of the XXI century societal challenges.
The S-SC is currently in an early consolidation phase after the launch stage and basic organization process. The S-SC activities can be divided in five broad areas: mobility programs, educational activities, research activities, innovation and enterprise-oriented activities, and cultural promotion and dissemination.

The main mobility program, known as 20+20 exchange program, allows 10 students from each university to join each semester in an exchange between Tongji University and UPM. To date more than 100 UPM students have already benefited from this program. The mobility program is complemented with the involvement of UPM in various summer schools at Tongji, ranging from one to several weeks of duration. In addition, the S-SC offers support to every student who wishes to make use of the existing public funding opportunities for master level and PhD studies, especially at Tongji University. Furthermore, since Autumn 2015 semester UPM has launched a new part-time scholarship program for the support of the S-SC activities and aimed at exchange students.

Educational activities include double degrees and specific courses. As at Spring 2016 a double degree in Telecommunication Engineering and another on Software Engineering have already been launched, with starting date on September 2016. Also a double degree on Materials Engineering is about to be launched. Courses, such as on antenna measurement (with a new edition on July 2016) and on innovation and entrepreneurship (every semester since spring 2015), are amongst the formative actions that the S-SC is carrying out in cooperation with different schools from Tongji. In addition, several conferences and specific workshops about architecture, urbanism, energy, technology management, internet of things, big data, electronic management, information and communication technologies and entrepreneurship have already been organized.

The research activities are mostly related to the so-called “high-end experts” positions, which consist of different schemes of Chinese national and regional funding to attract foreign talent. This funding allows UPM researchers to collaborate with their Tongji counterparts for a period that goes typically from two or three months every year up to three years. Currently, the UPM has three experts of this type on the fields of Telecommunication, Interfaces and Software, and Biomaterials. To encourage the mutual knowledge that leads to the consolidation of investigation relationships, from 2016 UPM has launched a program of short-term aids for China, especially focused on Tongji University. S-SC contributes to this program facilitating accommodation and organizing contacts and agenda. UPM through S-SC also participates in the main 111 China Program to modernize education and research at College of Architecture and Urban Planning in Tongji. This is a 5-year program called “Future City, Future Architecture”. Since 2016 there is also an Erasmus+ program led by UPM that allows exchange of academic managerial staff and PhD students short stays.
Within the scientific domain, it is worth to note the International Conference in City Sciences, jointly organized by Tongji University and UPM with support from S-SC. The first edition took place on June 2015 with more than 150 participants, 50 papers accepted at the open call and more than 20 invited speakers. The second edition has taken place in Santiago de Chile on June 2016 with similar figures.

The innovation and enterprise-related activities include semester-long courses for entrepreneurs at the School of Business and Economics in Tongji as well as on its students’ incubator, Venture Valley. In addition, further relationships have already been established with other incubators promoted by Tongji. As a continuation of these activities, on July 2016, a Summer School has been organized by the S-SC with students from EEUU, China, Europe and Spain, focusing on innovation in the field of sustainable cities.

On the cultural and dissemination domain, S-SC cooperates with Tongji and main Spanish institutions and organizations in Shanghai / China in all types of activities with a focus on promoting Spanish language and culture. As main examples it has organized high impact events as the Football World Cup at Tongji, the S-SC anniversaries, painting and photography exhibitions, Spanish language courses, and help in the arrangements of several field trips of Chinese students to Spain.

LI XIANGNING
He is deputy dean and full professor in history, theory and criticism at Tongji University College of Architecture and Urban Planning. He is a member of CICA(Comité International des Critiques d’Architecture), and has published widely on contemporary Chinese architecture and urbanism in international architectural magazines including Architectural Review, A+U, Architectural Record, Arquitectura Viva, Space, Domus, and Volume. He was a visiting scholar at MIT, teaching a course in the year of 2006. In 2009, Dr. Li was the UFI Fellow at MAK Center of Art and Architecture in Los Angeles, and Erasmus Mundus visiting professor at TU Darmstadt.
He lectured in universities and institutes including Harvard University, Princeton University, University of Southern California, Chalmers University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, and Canadian Center for Architecture. He is co-curator of 2011 Chendu Biennale, 2011 Shenzhen Biennale, and academic director and curator of 2013 Shenzhen/Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale, and Westbund 2013 Biennale.

XAVIER FERRE

JEAN YU
Born in 1986, got her bachelor degree for Spanish and English Philology in Shanghai International Studies University, master in linguistics at Universidad Complutense de Madrid and master and PhD candidate in Economics Analysis at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos.
She pursued her professional career in the Chinese Embassy in Spain and Universidad Carlos III of Madrid. She is the program coordinator of Sino-Spanish Campus of Tongji University.

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