On November 17, 2014, a ceremony was held at RIKEN for the signing of a memorandum of understanding for research collaboration and exchange between RIKEN and Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU). The current MoU builds upon a General Collaborative Agreement between RIKEN and SJTU that was first entered into in February 2008. Following that, a further agreement was made in October 2009 to allow students from the SJTU Department of Physics to receive training at RIKEN under the International Program Associate (IPA) programs, and in August 2014 to open the program to students from the School of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Civil Engineering.
Following the signing of the General Collaborative Agreement, exchanges have taken place in the fields of nuclear physics, glycobiology, and nanoscience. Recently, researchers from the two institutions have actively cooperated in the areas of photophysics, computational science, and environmental science.
The present memorandum is intended to nurture the development of human resources among researchers cooperating in these fields. Furthermore, a joint research center will be established as a place where the two organizations can work together to solve global issues that affect both Japan and China.