Cultivating Great Minds in Technology Student Exchange with ETH Zurich Launched
A ceremony to mark the launch of a science and technology student exchange program between HKUST and ETH Zurich in Switzerland was held today at the HKUST Clear Water Bay campus. ETH Zurich, also known as the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, is the alma mater of Albert Einstein. Established in 1854, it is Switzerland’s oldest and largest Federal university.
The cooperation agreement between the two universities is set to boost contact between students. The first batch of students will embark on exchange in the academic year 2008-09. The agreement will also facilitate joint research projects and faculty exchange.
Prof Yuk-Shan Wong, Acting President and Vice-President for Administration and Business, Prof Philip Chan, Dean of Engineering, and Prof Shiu Yuen Cheng, Dean of Science, attended the launch ceremony for HKUST. Ms. Judith Holzheimer of the Student Exchange Office represented ETH Zurich .
“The cooperation agreement with ETH Zurich opens another fascinating window on the wider academic world for School of Engineering students,” Dean Chan said. “Stronger links between two such leading universities will also be of mutual benefit in our drive to advance scientific and technological innovation.”
ETH Zurich has produced 21 Nobel Prize winners in the course of its history, including Einstein (Physics 1921), who studied at the university in the 1890s and returned to teach physics from 1912-1916. Among other winners are Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen (Physics 1901), Felix Bloch (Physics 1952), and current ETH professor Kurt Wuthrich (Chemistry 2002).
The Swiss university continues to be a key player globally in science and technological development. In Times Higher Education Supplement rankings for 2007, ETH Zurich was ranked at 42 in the World’s Top 200 Universities league table and at 13 in the World’s Top 100 Technology Universities rankings. The latter ranking is the highest among countries in Europe other than the UK.
HKUST School of Engineering and School of Science currently have student exchange agreements with over 60 universities around the world, including Britain, Canada , Demark , France , Germany , Ireland , Japan, Netherlands, Norway , Singapore , South Korea , Sweden , Switzerland , Thailand, and the US. Exchange partners include many top-ranking universities in technology, among them UC Berkeley, Georgia Tech, Cornell, Toronto, Technical U of Munich, Tsinghua, and Kyoto University .
About The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) (www.ust.hk) is a world-class research university that focuses on science, technology and business as well as humanities and social science. HKUST offers an international campus, and a holistic and interdisciplinary pedagogy to nurture well-rounded graduates with global vision, a strong entrepreneurial spirit and innovative thinking. HKUST attained the highest proportion of internationally excellent research work in the Research Assessment Exercise 2014 of Hong Kong’s University Grants Committee, and is ranked as the world’s best young university in Times Higher Education’s Young University Rankings 2019. Its graduates were ranked 16th worldwide and top in Greater China in Global University Employability Survey 2018.
