SPbPU representative office in Shanghai expands partnership with Chinese industrial sector

23 May 2023 International activities 361

In early May, the Representative Office of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University in Shanghai organized negotiations with the Shanghai Research Institute of China’s largest petrochemical corporation Sinopec (China Petrochemical Corporation). The parties discussed possible models of cooperation in the field of research and development and agreed on a series of online meetings with the scientific groups of the university to identify specific areas of joint work.

Polytechnic representative office in Shanghai expands partnership with Chinese industrial sector

Sinopec is a leading supplier of petrochemicals and the second-largest oil and gas company in China, the largest refiner and the third-largest chemical company in the world. Polytechnic University was first introduced to the company at the 21st China International Expert Exchange Conference in April this year, where representatives of Shanghai and Nanjing Polytechnic University Lu Zhiyu and Shi BOCHAO actively participated. In addition, the company’s experts participated in a project seminar on new materials recently held at the Nanjing office of SPbPU, after which they expressed interest in discussing cooperation with the university in more detail.

The Shanghai office of Sinopec was represented at the current meeting by Liu Junyan, deputy director of the Synthetic Polymers Research and Development Department, and Qiu Lin, head of the International Cooperation Department. Chinese colleagues spoke about the main directions of work and structure of the corporation Sinopec, and noted their interest in attracting advanced technologies from universities, especially in such areas as biodegradable polymers, materials for medical applications, engineering plastics for 3D printing, carbon composites.

From the side of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, the meeting was attended by Lu Zhiyui, Head of SPbPU Representative Office in Shanghai, and Sergey Antonov, Head of the International Scientific and Foreign Economic Relations Department. The latter noted that cooperation with Chinese partners is one of the strategic priorities of the university, and cooperation with major industrial partners — the most important tools for the development of advanced research and technology. Representatives of Polytechnic University also shared with the Chinese side their rich experience in cooperation with foreign industrial companies, spoke about the best practices in implementing research projects and creating joint research laboratories and centers with foreign partners, including from China. The university competences in the field of computer modeling for aviation and automobile industry in the context of possibility to apply digital twin technology in development of equipment for extrusion and molding of polymers and composite materials attracted attention of Chinese colleagues.

As a result of the negotiations, the parties noted the necessity to establish closer contacts between the university research groups and company experts in particular areas and agreed to hold several thematic online meetings. The nearest of them will be devoted to the biomedical polymers and carbon composites. Given Sinopec’s wide range of research capabilities and requests, many university research groups can be involved in the cooperation, which will be actively promoted by the International Office.

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