BNRU and Dezhou University Broaden Ties

Our team was led by Professor Andrei Peresypkin, Vice-Rector for the Implementation of Strategic Development Programs, and included Professor Sergei Zherebtsov, Dean of the Department of Material Science and Nanotechnology, his colleague Dr Marina Tikhonova, and Dr Marina Skorkina, Acting Head of the Medical Institute's Department of Biochemistry. Cooperation with Dezhou University dates back to 2004, and has yielded a number of joint projects, focusing mainly on Economics and Foreign Languages, and including exchange programs. The University has a Russian Language Centre staffed by our teachers. This time our team was invited to Dezhou as guests of the Dezhou City Administration and the Rector of Dezhou University. Chang Chuanzhun, the Deputy-Mayor, Song Xiaomei, Head of the Office of Foreign and Migration Affairs, and Zhou Chunhua, Head of the Department of Personnel Affairs, were among the party assembled to greet our delegation.
The ensuing meeting was centred around including the City Administration in the process of deepening our links in academia, but also in business. It was agreed that the existing program of cooperation be expanded, not least through the new Centre for Chinese Language and Culture, opening at BNRU on 19^th October, 2018. After this initial meeting, our group toured some of the most modern businesses in Dezhou, and visited a Business Incubator, where they were able to talk to local businessmen about areas of mutual benefit.

Then it was on to Dezhou University where they toured the Regional Biophysics Laboratory and met Professor Zhao Shengzun, Rector of Dezhou University. They met students and teachers at the Laboratory, which is in the top 10 in China. It is this Laboratory which will be key to the expansion of academic partnership, as our specialists will team up in biology, chemistry, medicine, materials science, ecology and food safety. Professor Ji Huawan, in charge of the Laboratory, was very keen to begin joint work on his current project, the cultivation of cell lines of varying degrees of differentiation. Our Chinese colleagues and students heard presentations from Professor Peresypkin, Professor Zherebtsov, and Dr Skorkina on the work being done at BNRU and the cultural life of the University. The successful visit concluded with the Rector conferring Visiting Professor status on our delegation, awarded by Dezhou University's Institute of International Education.