Nokia and Tsinghua University Announce New Research Framework

(Top News, 28 May 2007)

Nokia and Tsinghua University, China, have announced the establishment of a research framework and a facility dedicated to long term joint research programs. This agreement is the first of its kind in Asia for Nokia Research Center (NRC), which has established similar arrangements with several world-class universities in the US, UK and Finland in recent months. Tsinghua's professors and students will collaborate with NRC researchers on a wide range of topics; some global, others focused specifically on Asia. The research framework establishes the principle and practice that Nokia and Tsinghua will follow in pursuing joint research projects over time and sets the direction and overall topics for research.

Commenting on the agreement, Professor Zhisheng Niu, Vice Dean of the School of Information Science and Technology at Tsinghua, said: "In some ways, the future of mobile technology is the future of all technology in China. The country has set itself the goal of developing indigenous innovation and, with four times as many mobile subscribers as internet users, the opportunities within mobile technology are clear. In addition, a world-class communications network is essential to breakthroughs in all areas of science and technology research, rendering mobile technology doubly important. With this announcement, therefore, Nokia is not only promoting research in its own fields, it is actively facilitating and supporting an entire culture of innovation."

The research will initially focus on a handful of areas, including wireless and Internet for Asia, interaction solutions for Asia, Mechanics & Hardware for Multimedia communications devices and mobile internet-based services. The collaboration will be substantial from the outset, with around 20 Nokia researchers working alongside 30 professors and associates and up to 50 students from Tsinghua.

Commenting on the agreement, Dr. Bob Iannucci, Nokia Senior Vice President and Head of NRC, said: "This new agreement gives us an opportunity to partner with an acknowledged leader in information technology and engineering. The establishment of NRC's first joint research facility in Asia further reinforces the commitment to our open innovation model—which has served us and our collaborators well in the US and Europe over the last eighteen months. We anticipate that our collaboration with Tsinghua University will contribute significantly both to the advancement of the state of the art in mobility and to technologies with a specific relevance to Asia."

With over 480 million mobile subscribers in China, interest in mobile technologies in the country is high. But the attraction of Tsinghua as a research partner for Nokia goes beyond this statistic. Seppo Pienimaa, who is heading NRC's contribution to the research facility, commented: "China's universities have excellent facilities both for teaching and research in science and technology. With the increasing number of engineering graduates every year, the pool of talented and enthusiastic thinkers is large. NRC is excited by the possibilities for collaboration that this opens up: we expect that sharing our ideas across borders, oceans, cultures and life experiences will help develop completely new areas of creativity and enable us both to pose—and to answer—the most challenging questions."

Nokia Research Center
Nokia