Regional Engagement

Queen Mary University of London has longstanding ties to Southeast Asia, including a wide range of educational partnerships, research partnerships in Science and Engineering and the unique opportunity to study commercial law in two major commercial hubs: London and Singapore. 

Queen Mary has educational partnerships throughout the region, with partners in Malaysia (University Teknologi MARA and International Medical University),  Indonesia (Universitas Gadjah Mada and Institut Teknologi Bandung), Singapore (Singapore Management University) and Thailand (Thammasat University, Chulalongkorn University and Mahidol University).

As of April 2023, there are more than 370 students from Southeast Asia studying on Queen Mary degree programmes in London, with students from Malaysia and Thailand particularly well represented.

Dual LLM 

We offer a Dual LLM in Commercial Law in partnership with Singapore Management University (SMU), which offers global learning opportunities for law students who want to experience different cultures, business environments and legal jurisdictions in London and Singapore. 

The first six months of the intensive Dual LLM in Commercial Law (London and Singapore) are taught in Singapore by SMU, with the following 10 months being taught at Queen Mary’s Lincoln’s Inn Fields campus in Holborn: the historic legal centre of London. 

The dual LLM from Queen Mary and SMU equips students to work in the highly sought after interdisciplinary areas of law, economics and finance, giving them a comprehensive understanding of both UK and Asian law. 

Research and impact 

In May 2022, Queen Mary signed a Memorandum of Understanding to enter into a strategic partnership with Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang to further drive research and impact opportunities.

USM is among the oldest institutes of higher education in Malaysia, with the university’s main campus hosting over 28,000 students. USM and Queen Mary wish to collaborate in a number of areas, with the partnership focusing on education and the development of degree programmes at undergraduate level, research, mobility and policy and social impact. 

In December 2020 Queen Mary physicist Professor Alan Drew co-founded the National Battery Research Institute (NBRI) Indonesia with Founder Prof. Dr. Evvy Kartini of BATAN (the National Nuclear Energy Agency of Indonesia).  

NBRI is Indonesia's independent institute for electrochemical energy storage science and technology, supporting research, training, and education. Supported by the UK Government’s Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) as part of Queen Mary’s quality-related research allocation, the long-term goal of the Institute is to encourage and support a battery manufacturing industry using local resources and Indonesia’s vast potential for renewables to secure energy independence for the country. 

In conversation with Shazelina Abidin 

In February 2023 Shazelina Abidin, Malaysian diplomat and Director General of the Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations (IDFR), discussed her career in diplomacy, her time at Queen Mary and her work as Director General of the IDFR in a Queen Mary Global Policy Institute in conversation interview. 

Queen Mary University of London is actively involved in South Asia, with established partnerships, deeply embedded initiatives, and strong relationships with connections in the region. These include 15 educational partnerships and research partnerships throughout the region.

Queen Mary has educational partnerships in several South Asian countries and nearly 2,000 students from South Asia enrolled on our programmes in London in 2022 alone.

In India, Queen Mary has partnerships with Manipal Academy of Higher Education and O.P. Jindal Global University dating back to 2014, and partnerships with Amity University and Vellore Institute of Technology which date back to 2015. There is also a partnership with Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, formed in 2020.

Queen Mary has partnerships with O.P. Jindal Global University across a range of schools within our Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, offering postgraduate progression opportunities into Queen Mary, as well as joint research opportunities, particularly in the Liberal Arts. O.P. Jindal is a key partner in the Resilient Futures India Initiative, which looks at the resilience challenges facing India today and seeks to design solutions to these challenge by bringing together academic communities in the UK as well as policy and industry leaders.

Queen Mary has been co-funding PhDs with the Pakistan Higher Education Commission (HEC) since September 2016. The jointly funded scholarships cover tuition fees and provide a stipend to contribute towards the scholar’s living costs. Students are able to apply for a PhD in any School within the Faculty of Science of Engineering and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and there are 15 places available per year across both faculties.

Research

Our research partnership with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai covers all three of our Faculties, and the Institute is also involved in the Resilient Futures India Initiative (see below), having signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Queen Mary’s Global Policy Institute.

Queen Mary’s research partnership with the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay also covers all three Queen Mary Faculties.

Resilient Futures India Initiative

The Resilient Futures India Initiative (RFII) is an open partnership of UK and Indian institutions, working to identify sustainable solutions to some of society’s most complex challenges. RFII seeks to understand ‘resilience’, with a view to co-create programmes of research that can effect positive change on real-world policy and practice.

Summits have been held in New Delhi, Mumbai and London.

In June 2021 as part of the fourth international meeting of the RFII partners, the Queen Mary Global Policy Institute held “Building Resilience for the Future - a global seminar” with contributors from TISS Mumbai, Reliance Industries, NITI Aayog (National Institute for Transforming India) and the UNICEF India Country Office, among others.

A warm welcome in Karachi

In June 2022 Professor Colin Grant, Queen Mary’s Vice-Principal (International) visited Karachi, where he received a warm welcome from leading universities, institutes, government officials, cultural organisations and alumni. His agenda included an address to 80 Rotary Club of Karachi members focusing on the Queen Mary Global Policy Institute’s Resilient Futures Pakistan Initiative (RFPI), a project addressing the key resilience challenges facing Pakistan today, co-creating programmes for research and identifying opportunities for intervention.

Professor Colin Grant said of his visit: “If I were to try to capture what might be termed the ‘spirit’ of Karachi, I would use the term openness. I left with so many impressions of so much generosity of spirit, deep hospitality and opportunities for real impact through education.”

Queen Mary University of London is deeply involved in East Asia, with many long-established partnerships. These include joint programmes with prestigious Chinese universities, many educational partnerships and research partnerships in materials, engineering and computer science.

Queen Mary has educational partnerships in several East Asian countries. In China, Queen Mary runs joint programmes with Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT), Nanchang University and Northwestern Polytechnic University. Other key partners in the country include Sichuan University, Xiamen University, Peking University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) and Renmin University of China. In Korea, Queen Mary has partnerships with Seoul National University and Yonsei University.

In Japan, Queen Mary has partnerships with Kyoto University Japan – including an exchange programme, research links and a joint workshop with the William Harvey Research Institute (WHRI) – and Keio University Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, which includes a joint research funding bid with Queen Mary’s School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science. 

Joint programmes

Our current joint programme partners in China are Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT), Nanchang University and Northwestern Polytechnic University.

In September 2022 our new Joint Education Initiative in Hainan Education Zone, formed in partnership with BUPT, enrolled its first cohort of students, and incremental growth will see the total number of students grow to 1,200 in the next five years.

Teaching is entirely in English, preparing students to work globally, with half of the course taught by ‘Flying Faculty’ academics from Queen Mary and half by our partners in China.

Our partnership with BUPT dates back to 2004, and - alongside our new Joint Education Initiative - offers an innovative set of jointly run degree programmes in telecommunications systems and networks: BSc(Eng) Telecommunications Engineering with Management, BSc(Eng) e-Commerce Engineering with Law and BSc(Eng) Internet of Things Engineering.

Our partnership with Nanchang University was founded in 2013 and offers a Biomedical Sciences / Clinical Biomedicine degree jointly delivered with Queen Mary’s School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences (SBBS). The degree in Biomedical Sciences is one of SBBS’s most successful undergraduate programmes, renowned for its high standards of teaching and academic rigour.

Queen Mary’s partnership with NPU began in 2017 and offers degree programmes in the field of Engineering Materials through their Joint Educational Institute. A degree in Materials Science and Engineering is offered at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, while a programme in Polymer Materials Science and Engineering is also available at undergraduate level.

Research

The Sino-British Institute for Materials Research joint research lab between Sichuan University (SCU) and Queen Mary was the starting point for the relationship between the two institutions, and has seen SCU become one of our most significant partners in China. There are also research links with Schools in Queen Mary’s Faculties of Science and Engineering and Humanities and Social Sciences, as well as postgraduate progression, undergraduate articulation and study abroad opportunities for Sichuan students at Queen Mary. Queen Mary students have also participated annually in SCU’s Summer University Immersion Programme.

Queen Mary signed a research Memorandum of Understanding with Huazhong University of Science and Technology in October 2021, as well as a postgraduate progression agreement for HUST students to join postgraduate courses in EECS. The first HUST student came to Queen Mary in September 2021. In 2022 the Queen Mary – HUST strategic partner fund was launched, providing a total of £100,000 in seed funding for new research engagements between HUST and Queen Mary colleagues. The fund opened for a second round of funding applications in May 2023 and is expected to fund around 10 projects with a total budget of £10,000 per project.

The Sino-British Research Centre for Molecular oncology was jointly established by Queen Mary and Zhengzhou University (ZZU) in April 2006. The Research Centre is based upon the concept of equal partnership and mutual benefits between ZZU and Queen Mary. The purpose of the Research Centre is to introduce in China up-to-date research activities in the field of molecular oncology in order to meet the demand of the region's economy for internationally recognised expertise, and to promote international academic and research exchange between the Parties.

China Scholarship Council

Queen Mary is one of the largest supporters of the China Scholarship Council (CSC) in the UK and awards joint Queen Mary-CSC PhD scholarships every year. Under the scheme, Queen Mary will provide scholarships to cover all tuition fees, whilst the CSC will provide living expenses and one return flight ticket to successful applicants. This scholarship is available to both new and continuing (current first year) students. Associate students who want to come to Queen Mary for three to 24 months can also apply.

Queen Mary University of London has a long and proud history of welcoming students from across Europe to study with us, and we are pleased that almost 2,000 students from European countries made Queen Mary their home for the 2022 academic year.

However, our relationship reaches much further than the 41 countries from which we welcomed full degree students in 2022. With our medical school campus in Malta, our campus in Paris, and our five campuses across London, our students have opportunities to study across the European continent.

Queen Mary has 62 education partners in Europe across 15 different countries, including some of its most longstanding partnerships in Norway and Sweden working with the University of Bergen and University of Gothenburg since 1997.

Queen Mary has particularly strong links in France, including Université Paris Dauphine-PSL, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, ESCP Europe Business School and The University of London Institute in Paris.

It also has partners in Germany (Munich Business School) Italy (LUISS Guido Carli, University of Genova, Universitas degli studi de Milano, University of Milan (UNIMI)), Malta (The Government of Malta, the Ministry for Health and the Ministry for Education and Employment), the Republic of Uzbekistan (Tashkent State University of Law), and The Netherlands (Maastricht University).

As of March 2022, there were more than 3,500 students from Europe studying on Queen Mary degree programmes in London, with students from Italy and France particularly well represented.

MBBS Programme

Queen Mary is proud to offer a five-year Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) programme taught on the Mediterranean islands of Malta. The MBBS is taught by Queen Mary's Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry.

The Queen Mary Malta Campus was the university’s first international campus and has the honour of being the first ever medical school located on Gozo, with a new state-of-the-art campus opened on the grounds of Gozo General Hospital in 2019. The campus strives to achieve the highest standards in research and to make a real impact on health-related problems for the benefit of both local and global populations. Research ranges from basic science at the laboratory bench, to identifying new targets, drugs or other treatments, and applied health research involving patients and public health interventions.

LLM and LLB Programmes

Queen Mary’s School of Law first partnered with Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne in 2016, when it launched a Double Master of Laws (LLM) programme. In 2018 it furthered this relationship by launching a Double Bachelor of Laws (LLB) programme. In 2022-23, there were 21 students studying on the LLM programme and 107 students studying the LLB programme.

Our partnership with the University of London Institute in Paris (ULIP) enables students to study at a world-renowned British university in the centre of the French capital and graduate with a prestigious degree from Queen Mary. We offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses, including an LLM in Paris and MA International Relations (Paris).

Impact and Research

Horizon 2020 was the EU's research and innovation funding programme from 2014-2020 with a budget of nearly €80 billion. A number of projects that Queen Mary have been involved in across Europe received funding, including:

3TR is a research and development collaborative under the Innovative Medicines Initiative. With over €80 million funding, the project has 69 partners across 15 European countries. Queen Mary has sponsored one of the clinical trials within this project, with Professor Constantine Pitzalis currently Chief Investigator and lead of the Rheumatoid Arthritis working group, helping to provide new insights into the mechanisms of response and non-response to treatment for the disease.

IMPULSE is a project funded by the European Commission and GACD as part of Horizon 2020, of which Queen Mary’s Nikolina Jovanovic is Chief Investigator. The project aims to improve treatment of individuals diagnosed with psychotic disorders in five low and middle-income countries of Southeast Europe: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo* UN Resolution, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia. The project also focuses on bridging the gap between research and policy, facilitating community-based mental health care, facilitating user-led involvement, and building research capacity in the participating countries.

MIP-Frontiers is a multidisciplinary, transnational and cross-sectoral European training network for MIR researchers that aims to train a new generation of researchers. It brings together leading MIR groups and a wide range of industrial and cultural stakeholders in order to contribute to Europe’s leading role in this field of scientific innovation and accelerate the impact of innovation on European products and industry. Simon Dixon leads and coordinates this consortium.

PROTECT is an EU-funded research project launched in 2020 which studies the impacts of the UN's Global Compacts on Refugees and Migration, which are two non-binding frameworks promoting international cooperation and responsibility-sharing as key solutions to handle global refugee flows. Queen Mary is one of PROTECT’s three UK-based teams, led by Elspeth Guild.

Turkey

There are currently around 100 students from Turkey studying at Queen Mary who are enrolled on a range of degree programmes at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

In 2018 Queen Mary signed an agreement with the Turkish Embassy which provides all PhD and masters students sponsored by the embassy a 20% discount on tuition fees.

The Turkish Study Abroad Program of the Ministry of National Education is a scholarship programme that is designed to sponsor Turkish students for post-graduate studies abroad. It is a full scholarship covering both tuition fees and stipend.

The Jean Monnet Scholarship Programme is a project funded by the EU. Scholarships are allocated exclusively for academic studies directly related to Turkey’s EU harmonisation process and the EU acquis. Jean Monnet pays up to €20,000 euros per year towards tuition fees, as well as providing a stipend and fixed contribution towards visa and travel costs. In 2022 Queen Mary signed an agreement with Jean Monnet, offering a 20% tuition fee discount for scholarship holders. The agreement is with the Schools of Law, Business and Management, Economics and Finance, and Geography only.