Shanghai university launches innovation center in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO - Shanghai Dianji University (SDJU), a Chinese public university of applied technology, Tuesday opened an international center here to tap into Silicon Valley.

The new center, housed at the Shanghai Lingang Innovation Center in San Francisco, will serve as a base for the university to conduct training and cooperation with U.S. universities, said Sun Peilei, party chief of the SDJU, at the opening ceremony.

It's the first overseas innovation center of the Shanghai-based university, which plans to partner with Shanghai Lingang Economic Development (Group) Co. Ltd, a major industrial park developer in China, to establish a few other innovation centers in Europe.

"Internationalization is our long-term strategy. It's the propeller of the university's development," said Sun. "We have maintained good relationships with U.S. universities. Last year, we established cooperative relationships with the University of Northern Iowa and Purdue University."

He said the university will send faculty members and students to the San Francisco center for the purposes of training and people-to-people exchanges, adding that the university is currently working on the plan.

The SDJU has core specialties in engineering and has a coordinated development of other disciplines, such as sciences, arts, economics and management, according to the university.

With one graduate program and 34 undergraduate programs, the university has about 12,500 full-time students and 378 international students.

The Chinese university also aims to recruit high-level talents through the new center.

According to the talent recruitment plan, top academic areas include electronic engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science and technology, as well as information and communication engineering.

The SDJU, located in the Lingang Area, about 75 km from the city center of Shanghai, is a strategic partner of Shanghai Lingang, which also has a few other innovation centers in Europe.

"We plan to launch our own innovation centers within Lingang's overseas centers. The partnership (with Lingang) will save us a lot of costs," said Sun.

Shanghai Lingang purchased a six-story office building in San Francisco for $42.6 million in June 2016.

Five months later, the State-owned company opened its San Francisco center in the building because of the city's innovation culture and its proximity to Silicon Valley.