A senior delegation from London Metropolitan University, led by Deputy Vice-Chancellor Gary Davies, recently paid an official visit to Harbin Engineering University (HEU) to deepen collaboration.
YIN Hang, Vice-President of HEU, welcomed the delegation and provided an overview of the university’s academic strengths, distinctive features and progress in internationalisation. He noted that the successful approval of two joint education programmes, submitted collaboratively by the two institutions, marks a landmark achievement in their partnership. HEU, he said, has long embraced an open approach to education, and looks forward to building on the joint programmes as a foundation to integrate complementary strengths, deepen holistic international talent training, advance research collaboration and student-staff exchanges, and further elevate bilateral cooperation.
Davies praised HEU’s academic standards, research output and achievements in international development. He highlighted the strong complementarity between the two universities’ disciplinary profiles and the wide scope for future partnership. London Metropolitan University, he stated, will draw on its teaching expertise to deliver high-quality joint programmes, and actively expand cooperation through initiatives such as student and staff exchange visits and international academic symposia, to establish a long-term, sustainable framework for inter-university collaboration.
During his stay, Davies toured teaching facilities and spaces dedicated to the joint programmes at HEU’s School of Foreign Studies and College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, including smart classrooms and the university’s Ice and Snow Design Workshop.
Founded in 1848, London Metropolitan University is the third largest comprehensive national university in the UK and the largest in the London region. It ranked first in the UK for “student improvement” in the 2026 Guardian University Guide, and sixth nationally for teaching quality. In the 2023 TEF, it was awarded a Gold rating for student experience.
The two Sino-foreign cooperative programmes – an undergraduate programme in Industrial Design and a doctoral programme in Language Intelligence and Global Strategic Management – received official approval in 2026. This visit has further consolidated the partnership between the two universities, clarified priorities for future collaboration, and will support HEU in expanding its international education channels, enhancing the quality of its joint programmes, and raising its global profile.
