New Web Science Laboratory for Tsinghua and Southampton

The Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, in China, and the University of Southampton have agreed to set up a joint laboratory focused on Web Science.

The signing ceremony of the Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University- Southampton University Web Science Laboratory (Tsinghua-Southampton Web Science Laboratory at Shenzhen for short) was held at the Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University.

The Southampton delegation was led by the vice chancellor, Professor Bill Wakeham, accompanied by Professors Wendy Hall, Nigel Shadbolt and Lu Maozu. The opening ceremony culminated with the signing of the agreement between Tsinghua and Southampton universities by Professor Guan Zhicheng, Dean of the Graduate School, and the Vice-Chancellor of Southampton.

In his welcome speech, Professor Guan Zhicheng spoke about the similarities of the Graduate School and the University of Southampton and promised full cooperation. Professor Bill Wakeham enthusiastically addressed the ceremony and spoke of the changes happening in the city of Southampton and the achievement of its University. He said that like Shenzhen, Southampton is a coastal city, and traditionally had a high employment in its docks. With the reduction of this, Southampton has had to retrain its workforce particularly in the high tech area. He wished the laboratory between the universities success, and expressed a hope that it would also be a platform for further cooperation. This was the Vice-Chancellor's second visit to the Graduate School.

After the signing of the agreement, the afternoon saw lectures from three professors of Tsinghua and Southampton. Professor Wu Jianping, Department of Computer Science, Tsinghua University, gave the lecture on ‘Challenging and Opportunity on Next Generation Internet’. From the School of Electronics and Computer Science at Southampton, Professors Nigel Shadbolt and Wendy Hall gave lectures on web science, on ‘Technology’ and ‘People’ respectively. Professor Wu and Professor Hall are the Directors of the joint lab.