Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya, Chairman and Founder of WMG, has signed a collaboration agreement with Inner Mongolia University (IMU) during a recent visit to WMG by Professor XiaoChuan Guo, Dean of the School of Economics and Management at IMU. The agreement will enable long-term partnership between WMG and IMU in research and other knowledge transfer activities.

Agreement between WMG and IMU has initially led to an executive training programme, led by Professor Sujit Banerji, which welcomed its first cohort of participants from IMU earlier this year. Other jointly supported activities will include doctoral research, visiting academic exchanges and a Global Forum of Policy and Practice between emerging and developed economies in partnership with Economics and West Ontario University in Canada.

The continuing partnership will see IMU and WMG working to develop collaborative research and development opportunities in the next three years by working with companies in China, Europe and the rest of the world, as well as national funding bodies. Dr Jay Bal (Associate Professor) and Dr Xiao Ma (Senior Research Fellow) from WMG are already working with IMU on a three year collaborative research proposal - ‘International Benchmarking Platform’ - for the Ministry of Education in China. Both Dr Bal and Dr Ma have been awarded Visiting Professorships at IMU for the period of the project.