University of Western Australia eyes further academic cooperation with Chinese universities

PERTH, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Vice-Chancellor of the University of Western Australia (UWA), Professor Amit Chakma, said the university would like to further deepen and broaden its relationship with Chinese universities to promote professors and students exchange and a sharing of knowledge.

Chakma's comments followed a meeting with Chinese Ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian, who visited the UWA campus in Perth on Wednesday.

As Australia produced about 2 percent of the world's knowledge and if the universities confine themselves within the borders of Australia, they're going to be poor in terms of knowledge, he said.

"We have to learn from the 98 percent of knowledge that the rest of the world generates, and an increasingly share of the knowledge is being generated by universities in China."

"It is in our interest to advance our knowledge to learn from each other. There are just so many compelling reasons why a change of knowledge through exchange of professors and students is so important," he said.

Chakma said the UWA has a robust relationship with Zhejiang University in east China. The two universities have conducted fruitful research collaboration in several areas including medical science.

"So we already have a strong relationship, and we'd like to grow that further," he said.