Development in Higher Education

China-UK University President Roundtable (CUUPR)

The China-UK Universities’ Presidents’ Roundtable has been hosted by OPGDI since 2016 and has become an important platform for university senior leadership to address global challenges and seek solutions in higher education. The Roundtable facilitates networking and international collaboration, with over 20 universities having taken part including Edinburgh, Cardiff, University College London, Tsinghua, Fudan, Beijing Normal, and Jilin.

The 2019 China-UK Universities’ Presidents’ Roundtable theme was ‘Global Challenges, Partnerships and Excellence in World-Class Universities’, with in-depth consideration of diversity, overseas research centres and cross-national collaborations. The 2021 Roundtable will address the intensified and emerging challenges of a post-COVID educational landscape.

Students Wellbeing and Administration Support (SWAS)

This project is dedicated to the advancement of the mental health and wellbeing of international students, in recognition of the challenges experienced when studying outside one’s “home” country and culture. The inaugural international conference held in June 2019 launched the joint ‘China-UK Counselling Association’, with a committee comprising counsellors from both countries, co-led by Alan Percy and Géraldine Dufour, Head of Counselling Service at Oxford and Cambridge respectively.

Lectures, workshops, peer networking events, cross-cultural dialogues and academic visitor exchanges focus on:

  • Identifying and understanding the barriers impeding international students’ use of university counselling services, with a corresponding increase in engagement and access
  • Insight and exposure to the cultural variants and influences on therapeutic models, such as the impact of Confucianism on psychodynamic approaches; cultural norms and conventions in the application of mindfulness, person-centred therapy; etc.
  • Disseminating shared learning and best practice across the Higher Education sector, including publication of academic research papers

Teaching and Learning (TAL)

A collaborative project between top-tier universities in the UK and China, “Teaching and Learning” promotes excellence in education at all stages and levels, from both policy and pedagogy perspectives. Through intensive residential short-courses, international symposia, peer-partnering and role-shadowing, educationalists from the two countries share and compare the challenges and innovations of their distinctive systems and approaches.

Topics are explored within and across culturally-specific contexts, from the macro level of governmental educational systems to the micro level of individual schools and classrooms:

  • Pedagogic methods within subject fields and interdisciplinary
  • Innovations in curriculum design, syllabus development and assessment regimes
  • Quality Assurance and Quality Evaluation
  • Technology enhanced learning: inclusivity and impact
  • Integrating research and teaching
  • Education in alignment with employability