Cooperation between Ostrava's universities and Chinese Soochow University

Today a memorandum has been signed in Ostrava about cooperation between VŠB – Technical University of Ostrava (VŠB-TUO), University of Ostrava (UO) and Soochow University. VŠB-TUO has been cooperating with Chinese educational institutions for many years.

"Soochow University is a highly acclaimed university. As far as research is concerned, it is among the best 5% of Chinese institutions. Therefore we have been planning this cooperation for a long time," confirmed Ivo Vondrák, rector of VŠB-TUO.

There will be student and academic staff exchanges as well as joint research. This cooperation between universities will be financially supported by the Moravian-Silesian region. For this year and the next half year the region's representatives ratified a grant amounting to 6 mil Czech crowns.

Cooperation between China and VŠB-TUO has been running for several years. Last year eight graduates from China got a MSc. degree in Finance at the VŠB-TUO Faculty of Economics. These students completed their first two years of bachelor studies at Hubei University of Technology (HUT) in Chinese town Wu-chan, capital city of Chu-pej province.
"These students started to study at the Faculty of Economics within a double-degree programme in bachelor Finance study programme. This programme has been running at the Faculty of Economics based on a Memorandum of Understanding with HUT. The Memorandum between VŠB-TUO a HUT was closed in 2009", said Vice Dean of VŠB-TUO Faculty of Economics Martin Macháček.

Chinese ambassador Mrs Ma Keqing visited VŠB-TUO last year in June.

VŠB-TUO endeavours to strengthen internationalisation of the university in education, involvement in international education programmes and increase of mobilities. "We are currently discussing co-operation opportunities with universities from Columbia, Dominican Republic and Singapore," adds Ivo Vondrák, rector of VŠB-TUO.