A joint research centre in Intelligent Systems has been launched in a research collaboration between the University of Technology Sydney and China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU).

 

The new centre is co-funded by both institutions and establishes long-term and sustainable research collaboration, including joint PhD supervision, staff exchanges and joint research projects.

 

Professor Chengqi Zhang, Director of UTS's Quantum Computation & Intelligent Systems research centre(QCIS), has been announced as a co-director of the centre.  He says the importance of the collaboration comes from SJTU exclusive rulings.

 

"The president of SJTU gave a general rule that they only assign a joint partner if they rank within the top 100 research institutions worldwide," he said, "however they decided to make an exception for QCIS."

 

"QCIS is a leading group in data mining, behaving informatics and image processing, and we can bring our expertise to the collaboration to make a mutually beneficial partnership".

 

Based in China, the centre will provide the ability for exchange for academics and students of UTS. Professor Zhang says a key goal of the centre is to strengthen research training for research students in both institutions, through increased capacity and availability of exchange programs and supervision opportunities.

 

QCIS is expanding its collaborative strength, with the recent signing of a joint research centre with Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT). The Centre for Data Mining and Service Technology will further encourage student and researcher exchange.

 

A team of ten professors - five from each side -  will bring together the research strengths from each institution to work  on developing new strategies and approaches to data mining and service technology.

 

In the 2012 ARC funding announcements QCIS received grants for four Discovery, two Linkage, and one Future Fellow projects worth over $2 million. Projects include building reliable quantum communications networks and building cyber-physical technologies that can adapt to new, unexpected and unforseen situations.