York University’s Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation welcomed a delegation of government representatives and business from Zibo, China including Gao Qingbo, the deputy mayor, Zibo Municipal People’s Government. The visit, which was led by Innovation York at York University, took place on June 16 to help facilitate opportunities for future research collaborations.
“We are looking forward to exploring the intersection of common priorities and developing opportunities for your organizations to partner with York University,” said Associate Vice-President Research Celia Haig-Brown, during the discussions. “We hope that, through the developments today, we can continue to build on and establish long-term and meaningful institutional relationships to support research in a wide variety of areas ranging from life sciences to electronic information to engineering to policy and beyond.”
Innovation York supports the transformation of teaching and creative endeavours into social and economic benefits with real-world applications in today’s global knowledge-based economy. Through Innovation York, researchers and students can access academic tools and a suite of services to connect with partners in industry, government and non-profit organizations in order to accelerate their innovative ideas from concept to impact – one of the key areas of opportunity that was explored at this visit.
The visit provided a forum for delegates from China to meet with researchers at York University to discuss and explore opportunities for research collaborations and site visits to York University research labs including the Orbitrap Ultra-High resolution mass spectrometer, the nuclear magnetic resonance labs and Associate Professor Derek Wilson’s lab which includes infrastructure for mass spectrometry and microfluidics fabrication.
Steven Wang, professor of mathematics and statistics of York University, is planning to visit Zibo later this summer to explore opportunities of collaboration with Zibo’s medical institutions to commercialize the research projects of his team. The Zibo government has now designated Zibo Medical Industry Association to coordinate Wang’s visit to Zibo and business meetings with local hospitals, enterprises and universities.