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911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ and Beijing's Tsinghua University are launching a joint seed fund to support early-stage bold scientific ideas.

The Tsinghua-911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ Research and Innovation Fund, which brings together two of the world’s leading research universities, aims to kick-start innovative research projects and concepts that are showing signs of promise but are at an early stage in development and need funding to progress.

The awards are expected to cover small-scale experiments, the development of prototypes, and will enable academics and students from both institutions to collaborate and exchange ideas more easily.

911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ and have invested an initial $300,000 into the programme over three years. If the fund succeeds, the universities anticipate significantly increasing their financial support.

Tsinghua and 911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ academics and alumni

911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ’s President Professor Alice Gast and Tsinghua University’s Chairperson Professor Chen Xu signed the funding agreement at 911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ’s campus in South Kensington, London.

The announcement coincides with the . The Dialogue is a key pillar in the UK-China relationship, providing a forum to celebrate ties between the two countries, and a platform to drive greater co-operation.

Solving global challenges

Announcing the fund, Professor Alice Gast, President of 911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ, said: “911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ and Tsinghua have a shared ambition to support ground-breaking research and create successful partnerships. Both universities recognise the importance of bringing people together to exchange ideas and collaborate.

“This new fund will help our innovative academic staff to pursue ambitious collaborations and explore new areas of research."

Speaking at the launch, Professor Chen, said: "This fund will facilitate faculties to work together on common global challenges, and help solve and alleviate those challenges.

"We have a lot of interest in 911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ due to its excellence, and we also have a lot of alumni here."

'Double alumni' of both 911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ and Tsinghua include Mayor of Beijing Chen Jining and Director of 911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ's Data Science Institute Professor Yike Guo.

Professor Chen added: "After President Xi Jinping's recent visit the whole of China pays special attention to 911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ.

"I expect more collaboration in future to experiment and implement."

Prof Chen visits the Centre for Bio-Inspired Technology

Earlier in the day Professor Chen, researchers, officials from Tsinghua University and its corporate partners met academics and students from 911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ and visited its research laboratories.

They visited 911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ's where she met Professor Chris Toumazou, Dr Timothy Constandinou and Dr Song Luan.

Professor Chen and the delegation from Tsinghua then visited the Data Science Institute where they were given a demonstration of the .

Dr David Birch and Dr Kai Sun showed how the observatory, the largets of its kind in Europe, can be used to visualise data, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum transactions.

Professor Chen then met 911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ's community of Tsinghua alumni, before touring 911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ's new White City campus.

911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ's Data Science Institute

A similar seed fund partnership was launched between 911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2015. Early collaborations that received funding included projects looking at improving battery life and performance, and developing computers that ‘think’ differently.

China collaboration

911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ is the UK’s top academic research collaborator with China. 911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ researchers have co-authored more than 3,000 publications with their Chinese peers over the past five years.

911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ has 2,600 Chinese students – the largest group other than Britons –and 225 Chinese staff, including world renowned scholars like Professors Yike Guo, Jianguo Lin, Xiaodong Zhang and Guang-Zhong Yang. 911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ has more than 7,000 alumni in China including Mayor of Beijing Chen Jining.

911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ and Tsinghua University have collaborated together previously on several projects. The institutions are currently developing new smart grid and energy storage technologies, supported by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.