UC Riverside backs sci-tech park sited in Tangjiawan

The University of California, Riverside signed a strategic partnership agreement on June 27 with Zhuhai Sunbury Sci-Tech Park, the latter to initiate construction in Tangjiawan at the end of the year.

The park in the Technological Innovation Coast of the Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone is expected to come into operation in 2019. It is projected to accommodate 100 startups to be incubated by 2021. UC Riverside-Sunbury focuses will be to commercialize scientific and technological achievements, production-education-research cooperation, startup incubation, and talent cultivation, according to the agreement.

Signing ceremony [Photo courtesy gd.chinanews.com]

The park is a technological startup incubation base working with domestic and overseas colleges, universities, and research institutions. A venue for 120,000 local on-campus college students for entrepreneurship and innovation, the park will rely on an innovation-driven environment of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. It is envisioned to draw outstanding technological research resources worldwide, and integrate and expedite innovations regarding education, practices, creation, and promotion to make Zhuhai a Port of Creativity in the Greater Bay Area.

UC Riverside is listed among the top in California's world-leading public research university system. It specializes in areas such as agricultural science and biotechnology.

It is working on several innovative projects including a centimeter-level positioning GPS system along with high-intensity bio-inspired materials. They are expected to settle down in Zhuhai in the future.

UC Riverside Chancellor Kim A Wilcox spoke highly of Zhuhai in terms of business and the living environment. He expressed hope that the cooperation could lead to an integration of science and technology, talent, startup infrastructure, and financial capital resources from both countries to bring into full play the park's incubator role.