Organisers

CIDA-UK

The China Innovation and Development Association in the UK (CIDA-UK) serves as a bridge between the UK and China for exchange of trade, education and culture and as a coordinator for local Chinese organisations. CIDA has fully utilised the potentials of local and overseas Chinese to achieve a series of goals by providing with opportunities for professionals, scholars, executives, businessmen and government officials of the two countries.

Contact: Peter Zhang ( peter.zhang@cidauk.org ).

Lancaster University

Lancaster University is a campus university dedicated to excellence through teaching and research. It is consistently rated as one of the top UK universities for research and teaching and carries an international reputation for quality within Higher Education. 92% of its research is rated as being of “international quality”.

Lancaster’s role with the China UK Entrepreneurship Challenge is delivered by the Lancaster China Management Centre (http://www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/research/centres/ChinaCentre/), led by Prof David Brown (d.brown@lancaster.ac.uk). The purpose of the Centre is to develop new programmes of research and teaching at postgraduate and post-experience level appropriate to the mission of Lancaster University Management School and relevant to the needs of Chinese managers and highlights Lancaster’s dedication to Sino-UK collaborations.

UCL

Founded in 1826, University College London (UCL) was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender, and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. UCL is the fourth-ranked university in the 2009 THES-QS World University Rankings. UCL currently has over 12,000 undergraduate and 8,000 postgraduate students.

UCL Advances (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/advances) is UCL’s centre for entrepreneurship and business interaction at UCL. It is led by Timothy Barnes ( t.barnes@ucl.ac.uk).

University of York

The University of York was founded in 1963 with 200 students. Since then, it has expanded to 11,000 students and has over 30 academic departments and research centres.
From its inception, the University has concentrated on strong viable departments and teaching and research of the highest quality.

York has always been highly rated for the standards of its teaching, and its outstanding performance in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise is also recognition of the world-leading research activity in York. Twelve departments were ranked in the top ten in the country with almost all departments in the top 20. The university is now ranked in the top 100 in the world.

Participating in the China UK Entrepreneurship Challenge is led by Dr Kiran Fernandes ( kf501@york.ac.uk) of the University’s Management School (http://www.york.ac.uk/management).

Queen's

The university was chartered in 1845, and opened in 1849 as "Queen's College, Belfast", but has roots going back to 1810 and the Belfast Academical Institution. Queen's is a member of the Russell Group of the UK's 20 leading research intensive universities, the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the European University Association, Universities Ireland and Universities UK. Queen’s University Management School offers a range of discipline-based programmes at undergraduate level in core management, economics, finance, accounting, actuarial studies and international business.

Tianjin Association for Science and Technology (TAST)

TAST, which stands for Tianjin Association for Science and Technology, is a non-governmental organization of scientists and technologists in Tianjin. It is under the auspices of Tianjin Municipal Party Committee, linking scientific personnel on behalf of the municipal Party and government as well as playing most important function in the development of scientific course. Founded in Jan.1959, TAST has become a large organization combining as a whole 150 different city-wide society in the fields of natural, technological, engineering, relative sciences, 18 sub-associations at district or county level, more than 400 sub-associations at bureau level as well as grass roots enterprise associations, with total member of 200,000. Besides, it is also one of the local units of CAST and one of the constituent members of Tianjin Commission of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (TCCPPCC).

TAST has been sticking to uniting and mobilizing Scientific and Technological workers to take economic construction as their goal, speeding up the prosperity and development of the science and technology, popularizing the science and technology, breeding the talents growth and promoting their improvement, facilitating the integration of science and technology with economic development, reflecting the opinions and requirements of the technical personnel, safeguarding their legal rights and serving for them, working effectively for the social, cultural, political, and economic development in the course of our socialist construction.

broadly carry out the academic exchanges, hold seminars to enliven the academic thoughts, promote innovation, breed subjects growth;
organize technical workers to establish a enterprise-centered system of technology creation, upgrade the level of enterprise creation;
organize the mass activities for the popularization of science and technology and the activities for the juvenile;
reflect to the government the opinions and requirements of the technical personnel and safeguard their legal rights and to bring into full play the mass participation and inspection in administrating the social and state affairs;
cite and award outstanding scientists and technologists as well as recommending talents;
undertake the strategic research, scientific assessment, as well as the transformation of scientific and technical results, accept the appointment to give the products certification, participate in the technology code making, value the professional technology certification;
conduct international academic exchanges;
facilitate the integration of natural and social sciences, engage in the advanced education and training

Chongqing Association for Science and Technology (CQAST)

Chongqing Association for Science and Technology (CQAST) is a non-profit and non-governmental organization of the scientific and technological workers in Chongqing. As a bridge between the scientific and technological workers and the government, it is an important driving force in developing the country’s science and technology.

The major tasks of CQAST are:

to promote the advancement of science and technology by means of scientific and technological exchanges;
to bring forth new ideas for enterprises in building the technological system;
to popularize scientific knowledge among the general public;
to safeguard the legitimate rights of scientific and technological workers;
to organize scientific and technological workers to participate in the political life of the state;
to award scientific and technological workers with outstanding contributions;
to provide policy advice and other services to the government and the society on science- and technology-related issues so as to contribute to economic and social development;
to develop cooperative relations with the international science and technology community;
to conduct continued education through various training programs;
to promote public welfare cause of the society.

Found in Dec. 1959, CQAST is composed of 127 academic and professional societies and associations for science and technology with more than 300,000 members now. Moreover, CQAST has its subordinate chapters in 40 districts and 220 enterprise and institution associations in Chongqing.

Email: cqastid@sina.com