Global partnership will help economy as well as academy

Amid the current global economic crisis, global partnerships and collaboration need to flourish even more so than in normal economic times, and this is true for academics as well, according to the Principal of King’s College London (KCL), Rick Trainor.

In an exclusive interview with chinadaily.com.cn on April 16 Trainor, who is also President of Universities UK added, “Just like the economists argue that we need to have collaboration among major economies of the world to solve the recession, that’s true for academic problems as well. … It’s cooperation across borders that brings up the best in academic life.”

In the previous years, King’s College London has built up partnerships on international education with universities including the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Tsinghua University, Fudan University in Shanghai, as well as Nankai University in Tianjin.

On this trip to Beijing, Trainor gave a keynote speech on “International education exchange against the background of international financial crisis” at the Asia-Pacific Association for International Education (APAIE) conference held in Beijing, and signed an agreement with Renmin University of China on student exchanges and joint PhD supervision on behalf of KCL.

He said that global collaborations, especially with modern electronic communications, are not very expensive. “My hope and expectation is that they will easily survive the recession,” he added.

Speaking of the increasing number of Chinese students in the UK, he said studying internationally is good for students to gain enough experience and this will help them a lot when they are hunting for a job.

“Employers across the world would favor those with international experience. Globalization is an important feature of our time, and it will become even more important in the future,” he said, adding that he himself has been studying internationally and getting degrees in different countries.

Concluding Trainor said that he thought highly of Chinese students studying at KCL, describing them as being very dedicated, hardworking, and of high quality. He noted that the biggest problem for Chinese students is English language since studying a degree in another language is a difficult task, but “they improve their English as they study their degree”.

（英语点津 Helen 编辑）