Education and research center bolsters Sino-Danish ties

BEIJING, May 19, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report from China Daily:

China and Denmark are joining hands to strengthen exchanges and promote cooperation. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, and the Sino-Danish Centre for Education and Research — an international education hall is connecting the world's excellent academic resources and research capabilities through cross-border cooperation on the shore of Yanqi Lake in Beijing's Huairou Science City.

The center, which was co-founded 15 years ago by the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, aka UCAS, and eight Danish universities, aids in writing a chapter of innovative cooperation between countries in the new era through continuous and in-depth educational collaboration, according to representatives from the center.

High-level cooperation

The Sino-Danish College, or SDC, undertakes the educational functions of the center. Then Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt attending the first semester's opening ceremony in 2012. The House of the Danish Industry Foundation located on the Yanqi Lake campus of UCAS was built with a donation from the Danish Industry Foundation and symbolizes the Sino-Danish friendship. The former Danish queen Margrethe II broke ground for it in 2014.

A joint management committee was established through cooperation between the Chinese and Danish sides to support the center's development. These high-level interactions embody the core concepts of Sino-Danish cooperation — joint consultation, co-construction and sharing — laying a deep foundation and providing reliable support for the development of SDC, the representatives said.

The center abounds in academic power, attracting intellectual resources from over 50 institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, or CAS, and eight top-notch universities from Denmark. It involves five strategic fields such as life sciences, water and the environment and social sciences.

In this context, the SDC not only unites academic power but also provides a unique environment for global talent development and intercultural collaboration. According to Morten Laugesen, Executive Director of SDC, "SDC is a truly unique and important collaboration", especially in an era where global challenges like climate and environmental change require joint solutions. He emphasized that SDC plays an important role by training students with different worldviews to collaborate and understand each other, fostering value-creating international relationships.

Top-notch learning

Leveraging the research and educational resources of the CAS and the eight Danish universities, SDC provides a dual-supervisor system (one Chinese and one Danish), English-taught courses by Chinese and foreign teachers, and mixed classes of outstanding Chinese and international students. Professor Morten Meldal from the University of Copenhagen, who was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, has supervised five Chinese students as a Danish mentor at SDC.

SDC implements a double degree education model where students can obtain degrees from both UCAS and one of the eight Danish universities. It aims to cultivate innovative and entrepreneurial professionals with interdisciplinary thinking, innovative awareness, an understanding of international rules, and international competitiveness. SDC offers seven master's programs and five doctoral research fields.

Students from China and Denmark have grown together in the cross-cultural environment of SDC, a vivid example of the cooperation between the two countries. For international students, the school is more like a comprehensive platform where they can be educated, learn Chinese culture, and promote friendly cooperation between China and other countries.

Tobias Harritz, who received a master's degree at SDC in 2024, said that with limited options to study neuroscience in Denmark, he applied to the Neuroscience and Neuroimaging master's program at SDC. "Our Chinese classmates were incredibly welcoming, often taking us to explore sights in and around Beijing, such as the Forbidden City and the Great Wall," Harritz said.

He said that the knowledge he gained from the master's program cannot be understated. It enabled him to secure his PhD position at the University of Oxford. Harritz's research in SDC mainly focuses on mild traumatic brain injury, aka mTBI.

Xue Rong, the Chinese supervisor of Harritz and a professor at the Institute of Biophysics of CAS, said: "During the one-year research process, Tobias completed the experimental design and data collection, observed differences in brain imaging between mTBI and normal mice across various modalities, and constructed models to reasonably explain the longitudinal changes of the corresponding imaging indicators. His work was very comprehensive and excellent."

"In the future, we will incorporate different treatment methods into this project to observe their effects on mTBI recovery, thereby providing references for the treatment of mTBI. We will also attempt to conduct related research in human mTBI patients," said Xue. Harritz also continues studying traumatic brain injury using advanced MRI methods in humans at the University of Oxford.

For Chinese students, SDC is an international platform for them to learn from advanced educational systems, pay scholar visits abroad and participate in interdisciplinary seminars.

When talking about harvests reaped in SDC, Cao Mingjing, who graduated in 2020 with double doctoral degrees, said: "SDC offers us precious exchange opportunities abroad. From the middle of 2018 to early 2019, I studied at the iNANO research center of Aarhus University, and it was very lucky that I was in the internationalized group of professor Duncan Sutherland and my colleagues were from different European countries."

Cao said she experienced the cultures of different countries, learned European thinking patterns and research habits and broadened her horizons there.

Green development

Aside from training students from the two countries, SDC also practices cooperation in green development. In 2023, the Danish and Chinese governments launched the Green Joint Work Programme to strengthen their collaboration in areas including climate and energy, the environment and water resources, and science and technology.

Danish Minister for Higher Education and Science Christina Egelund emphasized during her visit to SDC: "In areas such as green research, climate change, environmental protection and global health, China is not only an important partner of Denmark, but also of the world."

Building on this shared vision, the leadership at SDC also sees sustainability as an integral part of its academic mission. According to Laugesen, the two countries' green vision is incorporated into SDC's educational programs, shapes its research collaboration, and is reflected in its many PhD projects. SDC is currently strongly focused on the green transition and on creating solutions to global problems such as health, food, the environment and climate, he said.

Taking the national green transition strategy as an opportunity, SDC will deepen collaborative innovation in areas such as climate change, clean energy and smart agriculture. This bridge of science and education spanning the Eurasian continent not only carries the beautiful expectations of the two countries' people, but also demonstrates the Chinese wisdom in building a community with a shared future for mankind.

The Sino-Danish College is in the Yanqi Lake campus of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

SOURCE China Daily