The four year agreement was signed by Professor Iwan Davies, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Internationalisation and External Affairs) on behalf of Swansea University and Shuanghua Huang, Executive Vice-President on behalf of Panzhihua University, which is in the Sichuan Province of south west China.

The aim of the Declaration of Intent and Agreement is to create the potential for shared learning, and to open up opportunities for students and staff from both universities.

Professor Iwan Davies said: "We warmly welcome this agreement with Panzhihua University. Our own long history of academic and research excellence and Panzhihua’s first-rate reputation will hopefully lay the foundation for wide-ranging cooperation between our two universities."

Like Swansea, Panzhihua University has about 12,000 students and offers a wide range of courses in science, engineering, liberal arts, law, economics, management, and medical science. The University has an especially strong engineering department.

The University is located in Panzhihua City, which is known as the capital of vanadium and titanium, and the biggest base of the iron and steel industry in western China.

In addition to today’s signing ceremony, an eight-strong delegation from Panzhihua University was given a tour of the Swansea campus, led by the Acting Head of the International Office, Emma Frearson Emmanuel.  Angela Jinlei Zhang, a Chinese PhD student from the School of Law, also accompanied the guests.

The tour incorporated a visit to the newly-established International College Wales Swansea, and then the School of Business and Economics, where the guests met Head of School, Professor Andrew Henley.

In the afternoon, the guests visited the University’s School of Engineering, to meet academic staff including Dr Robert Yong Xiao, Senior Lecturer in Engineering and Dr Vincent Teng, Lecturer in Nanoelectronics.

The tour concluded with a visit to the Digital Technium, where the guests viewed the Institute of Advanced Telecommunication’s (IAT’s) research facilities and met Dr Xing Weixi, Project Manager of the IRIS (Intelligent Radio-fibre telematics Scout) project.

For more information about International students at Swansea University visit http://www.swan.ac.uk/international/.