Singapore University of Technology and Design: Zhejiang University (ZJU) collaboration

ZJU Collaboration

At SUTD, we hope to harness the best practices and values of the East and the West. When SUTD was established in 2009, this goal was realised through strategic partnerships with Zhejiang University (ZJU) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Why partner Zhejiang University?

ZJU is a national university in China founded in 1897. It is a member of the C9 League, the Yangtze Delta Universities Alliance and the Association of Pacific Rim Universities.

Being a comprehensive research university with distinctive features that have both a national as well as international impact, its research spans over 12 academic disciplines, covering philosophy, economics, law, education, literature, history, art, science, engineering, agriculture, medicine, management etc.

With 7 faculties and 36 colleges/schools, ZJU has 14 primary and 21 secondary national leading academic disciplines.

For more information, please visit ZJU official website.

Sources: Wikipedia | ZJU official website

3 Areas of Collaboration

ZJU helped develop the following five electives for SUTD:

These 5 electives infuse the elements of Chinese culture, etiquette, history and perspective into SUTD’s education. With these electives, students will gain first-hand knowledge of the rich Chinese culture and history while on SUTD campus.

The SUTD-ZJU Student Exchange is a joint effort established between SUTD and the International Design Institute (IDI) in ZJU. In this collaboration, SUTD will send students to ZJU in summer (from May to August) each year and they will be hosted by the IDI.

Outbound – Design And Technology Experience (DATE) at Zhejiang University (ZJU), Hangzhou China

Being a research-intensive university, one of SUTD's key focuses is to embark on research endeavours to create useful innovations that can be adopted by the world at large.

In the first phase of collaboration, SUTD and Zhejiang University (ZJU) Faculty members jointly embarked on research collaborations to address exciting challenges associated with the world today, in areas such as healthcare, transportation, clean energy and environment.

In the second phase of collaboration, both universities had established the SUTD-ZJU Innovation, Design and Entrepreneurship Alliance (IDEA). This platform serves as a nexus to promote deeper and more sustainable research activities between SUTD and ZJU faculty.

Through such collaborations, the intellectual minds of both institutions can jointly advance research boundaries and frontier driven by real-world challenges to ensure that innovations created would find relevance and adoption by the society.

Find out more about the SUTD-ZJU Research Collaboration.

SUTD-ZJU Innovation, Design and Entrepreneurship Alliance

Established in 2017, the SUTD-ZJU Innovation, Design and Entrepreneurship Alliance (IDEA) has its presence in both SUTD and ZJU. SUTD-ZJU IDEA is established to manage various research programmes and projects, facilitate exchange of students and faculty members and entrepreneurship activities between the two universites.

International Conference on Technology and Design

The International Conference on Technology and Design (ICTD) is a joint effort between SUTD and ZJU. The objective of ICTD is to congregate world renowned higher education institutions and leading industry organizations to discuss the current situation, challenges and advancements relating to the rapid emergence and fusion of technology and design.

The inaugural International Conference on Technology and Design (ICTD 2019) was held at Zhejiang University with a great success. This conference was held in the context of technology and design becoming an important engine that continuously drives innovations to enable our society’s prosperity and well-being.

The 2^nd International Conference on Technology and Design (ICTD 2020) was held in Singapore from January 14 to 15, 2020 in conjunction with the 8^th SUTD-MIT IDC Design Summit (download the event booklet). The theme of ICTD 2020 is Innovation, Design and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry and Education, Mr Chee Hong Tat, delivered the opening address on 14 January as the Guest of Honour.

During ICTD 2020, 24 scholars and experts from 6 countries delivered theme-specific talks and also shared their industry insights and experiences in the panel sessions on Design, R&D and Trend, and AI-for-X.

ICTD 2020 turned out to be a thought-provoking event that has led to new insights, exciting ideas and inspiring collaborations between disciplines. The speakers with various backgrounds shared their work and vision on innovation, design and artificial intelligence. Looking forward, ICTD will continue bridging different disciplines and stakeholders, as well as be dedicated to raising the research, education and practice of technology and design to a new level.

See ICTD 2020 event photos here.