Cooperation between Israel and China on higher education took a significant step forward with the signing of two agreements atthe first meeting of the Israel-China Joint Committee on Innovation Cooperation, held in Beijing on 29 January 2015.

The Joint Committee, bringing together a number of Israeli government ministries and their Chinese counterparts, was established in order to strengthen ties between the two countries in the realm of innovation, covering science and technology, education, culture and health.

In this framework, the Council for Higher Education, represented by CHE Vice Chair Professor Hagit Messer Yaron, signed two agreements on the subject of higher education. The first was an agreement with the China Scholarship Council to cooperate on funding for scholarships for Chinese students to study in Israel. As part of the agreement, CSC will provide supplementary funding for Chinese students who are selected to receive a CHE scholarship for study towards a Masters degree and for short-term summer courses in Israel. The agreement will strengthen CHE’s existing scholarship programs for Chinese students and is an important first step towards cooperation and coordination on scholarships between Israel and China.

Secondly, CHE and the Chinese Ministry of Education (MoE) signed a declaration regarding the establishment of the Israel-China 7+7 Research University Alliance. The 7+7 Alliance will work to promote research and academic cooperation between research universities in Israel and China. According to the decision of the universities, on the Chinese side the participating universities are: Tsinghua University, Peking University, Nanjing University, Renmin University of China, Shandong University, China Agricultural University and Northwest A&F University. On the Israeli side, the participating universities are: Bar-llan University, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University, University of Haifa, and Weizmann Institute of Science.

In their joint declaration, CHE and MoE welcomed this important initiative, and stated their hope to see additional initiatives to promote and expand academic cooperation between higher education institutions in Israel and China.