Jón Atli Benediktsson, Pro Rector of Academic Affairs at the University of Iceland, and Cao Yijia, Vice President of Hunan University, recently signed a partnership agreement between the two universities on student exchanges last November. They also signed a letter of intent stipulating further collaboration. The signing took place in Changsha city in China. Furthermore, Benediktsson was an invited speaker at the 5th Chinese Conference on Pattern Recognition that took place in the same city. Benediktsson’s talk was on his research in analysing patterns in remote sensing by using mathematical morphology.
According to the agreement a certain number of students at the University of Iceland will be able to take part of their studies as exchange students at Hunan University. In return students at Hunan University will be able to do the same in Iceland. The letter of intent that was signed on the same occasion stipulates that both universities will explore further possibilities in collaboration; e.g. on joint study programmes or research, as in recent year a dynamic research collaboration on remote sensing has been ongoing between these two universities. The plan is to strengthen this collaboration even further.
Hunan University, an extension of one of the four famous Academies of the Song Dynasty, dates back to the period of the founding of Yuelu Academy in 976 AD. It was reconstructed into Hunan Institute of Higher Learning in 1903, renamed Hunan University in 1926, and subordinated to the Republic of China's Ministry of Education as one of several state universities in 1937. Hunan University offers both undergraduate and graduate studies such as Philosophy, Economics, Law, Education, Literature, History, Engineering and Medicine. University employees are around 4,300 and the student body totals nearly 30,000.