In December 2019, the China Scholarship Council’s (CSC) Secretary-General Mr Sheng Jianxue and his team Ms Meng Li, Deputy Director, Division of American and Oceanian Affairs and Mr Liu Binxin, Project officer, Division of American and Oceanian Affairs visited Dunedin to meet with NZ-China NCD Research Collaboration Centre (NCD CRCC) to discuss the CSC–NZ CRCC Joint Funding Programme.
This comes after an expanded Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the CSC, NCD CRCC, the NZ-China Food Protection Network, the NZ-China Water Research Centre, University of Otago, University of Auckland, Auckland University of Technology, Lincoln University and Massey University.
This MOU is wider than that previously signed with the CSC as it involves additional parties and also cover exchanges for up to 15 PhD students/ visiting students and up to 15 visiting scholars and/or postdoctoral fellows a year, that are interested in undertaking research on non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
The CSC–NZ CRCC Joint Funding Programme include living costs, international airfares, visa application fee and health insurance from the CSC. Other benefits include waived tuition fee and the same opportunities to apply for research support as other doctoral candidates at the NZ universities, as well as additional support (e.g. seed funding and/or travel support) from the NCD CRCC to undertake activities that develop research collaboration between China and NZ.
During the meeting, both sides discussed their experience with the joint funding programme and agreed that the programme will mainly focus on priority research areas of NCDs with a special selection procedure for New Zealand candidates in place at the CSC.
