Professor Tao Wu, Dean of Faculty of Science and Engineering, Dr Craig Hancock, Head of Department of Civil Engineering, Mrs Jing Chen and Mr Lingen Zhou from Preca presented the signing ceremony this afternoon. The MOU signed aims to boost research collaborations, talent training programme and provides more industrial practice opportunities for FoSE undergraduate students.

Professor Tao Wu emphasised the research achievement we obtained in the past years. Faculty of Science and Engineering has been exploring and making efforts to improve the capabilities and competitiveness in research and knowledge exchange. In the past five years, among all the publications in Engineering discipline more than 50% of them are published in the top 10% journals, and about 28% of them are top cited worldwide. We would like to see more collaboration with local companies and develop discipline closely related with regional development.

Preca is one of the leading construction companies in Ningbo, mainly focus on precast concrete construction business. Mr Lingen Zhou, General Manager of Preca values high to this strategic cooperation with UNNC. “UNNC as the first Sino-foreign university in China has strong academic background and offers high quality teaching and research,” He said. “We would like to explore the technological innovation in the precast construction area with UNNC in terms of R&D and talent cultivation.”

“Precast construction provides time and cost benefit to the project and better quality control than on-site concrete construction. The collaboration with Preca aims to further enhance the productivity and sustainability of precast construction technology. It also provides our students with a platform to practice their theoretical knowledge. We are honored to partner with Preca to advance the development of precast concrete construction.” said Dr Bo Li, Assistant Professor in Structural Engineering, UNNC.