OREANDA-NEWS. September 20, 2012. BT, one of the world’s leading providers of communications services, has announced it is to strengthen its relationship with the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University (Tsinghua SEM) and to establish a new research lab that will be co-located at Tsinghua SEM in Beijing.

 The overall mission of the research lab is to develop and demonstrate new Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and advanced technologies, and to provide a bridge between Chinese innovation and BT technology. BT and Tsinghua SEM are considering a number of collaborative research programmes and joint research projects including the business application of ‘cloud computing’ and ‘e-Health’.

 Professor Zhu Yan of Tsinghua SEM said, “We have already collaborated with BT in many other projects and are very excited to establish this new research lab to explore opportunities related to new technology, inspire young talents, and build a creative environment for students and professionals.”

 Back in 2009, BT and Tsinghua SEM signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to begin strategic cooperation in collaborative research and student development, which has established a strong platform for communication between Tsinghua SEM and BT’s professionals. Since then, 11 MBA projects have been completed and four to five internships have been conducted every year under the BT/Tsinghua partnership.

 Jie Zhang, Head of BT China Research Centre, said, “BT values external innovation and collaboration with universities. We believe the lab will provide us with an excellent platform to prototype BT’s IPR and advanced technologies and to demonstrate them to Chinese business leaders.”