The vehicle will support small-scale experiments and prototypes and give researchers linked with both institutions the opportunity to exchange ideas.
Imperial College London and Tsinghua University joined forces on Friday to seed a $300,000 fund called the Tsinghua-Imperial Research and Innovation Fund to back early-stage scientific research.
Tsinghua-Imperial Research and Innovation Fund will support small-scale experiments and prototypes while giving researchers from both institutions the opportunity to exchange ideas. Imperial has approximately 9,600 Chinese students and alumni who include Chen Jining, the mayor of Beijing.
Imperial and Tsinghua will consider expanding the vehicle “significantly” if it is successful. The announcement was made during the UK-China High-Level People to People Dialogue, an annual conference intended to strengthen ties between the countries in several policy areas.
Imperial’s other international collaborations have included the MIT-Imperial Seed Fund partnership with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which awards grants worth $30,000 to $50,000 for exchange projects between the two universities.
Alice Gast, president of Imperial College London, said: “Imperial and Tsinghua have a shared ambition to support ground-breaking research and create successful partnerships. Both universities recognise the importance of bringing people together to exchange ideas and collaborate.
“This new fund will help our innovative academic staff to pursue ambitious collaborations and explore new areas of research.”
Chen Xu, chairperson professor of Tsinghua University, added: “This fund will facilitate faculties to work together on common global challenges, and help solve and alleviate those challenges.
“We have a lot of interest in Imperial due to its excellence, and we also have a lot of alumni here.”