Collaborative technology institute wins approval

Approval has been granted for the Guangdong Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to be established in Shantou, Guangdong province.

Formed in partnership with the Israel Institute of Technology, or Technion, and Shantou University, the GTIIT aims to facilitate research and innovation in China, with plans to recruit 2,960 students by 2026 and 5,000 by 2036.

Courses on offer when it opens next year will include biotechnology and food engineering, chemical engineering and materials engineering, with spaces for 300 students.

"It will become a leading school in Guangdong and in China," said Peretz Lavie, president of the Israel Institute of Technology.

"We are already recruiting faculty members from all over the world who will work for both the GTIIT and Technion. Some of them will have laboratories in Shantou and in Haifa, Israel. We will have exchanges of researchers and students and joint research programs.

"Putting together Israel's spirit of innovation and capacity for thinking outside the box and China's ability to produce everything with such efficiency and speed. This is a win-win."

About 60 percent of the teaching staff will come from Technion and the rest from global recruitment, said Li Jiange, chancellor of the GTIIT and chairman of the Sun Yefang Economic Science Foundation.

Aaron Ciechanover, who won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2004, will serve as vice-chancellor of the GTIIT. Once complete, its campus will cover an area of about 42 hectares. Construction of the first phase began in September last year.

The provincial education department of Guandong said that the GTIIT will be devoted to cultivating professional talent with international vision, who will be able to participate in global affairs and competitions.

It is expected that the institute will provide talent to support the province's innovation-driven development strategy.

Both the provincial and Shantou city governments have budgeted 4 billion yuan ($576 million) for construction of the GTIIT, according to the department.

The Li Ka Shing Foundation has also played an active role in bringing about the new institute.

In a recent visit, Zhu Xiao-dan, governor of Guangdong, called for the GTIIT to be built into a world-class university, adding that work would soon begin on a Sino-Israeli technology and innovation zone in Shantou.

The GTIIT is the latest collaborative university to gain approval in Guangdong, after the Shenzhen MSU-BIT University, to be jointly run by Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Beijing Institute of Technology, received approval in October.

Of the nine universities of this type in China, four are located in Guangdong.