Zhejiang University’s Dean Wang, Rensselaer Provost Robert Palazzo, and Lally School Dean David Gautschi celebrated the new collaboration.

Lally School of Management & Technology

Lally School Collaborates With Chinese University

In November, the Lally School of Management & Technology and the School of Management at Zhejiang University formally launched a five-year collaborative initiative to enhance and strengthen the global reach of each university’s entrepreneurial business and technology programs. Zhejiang, sometimes referred to as Zheda, is one of China’s oldest and most prestigious institutions of higher education.

The agreement, signed on the Rensselaer campus this summer, formally links the Entrepreneurial Research Center of Zhejiang and the Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship of the Lally School. For Zhejiang, the agreement augments a partnership with China’s Ministry of Labor to shift Zhejiang’s educational focus from employment to entrepreneurship. In addition to facilitating student and faculty exchanges, key initiatives will include joint faculty research, delivery of a virtual curriculum across the two institutions, and jointly designed and delivered executive programs on innovation and corporate entrepreneurship.

“In serving the mandate of The Rensselaer Plan to transform the Institute into a pre-eminent technological research university with global reach and global impact, the formal agreement with Zhejiang University certainly hits the mark,” says David Gautschi, dean of the Lally School. “Zheda is a pre-eminent university in China with outstanding faculties of science, engineering, and management. The fit with Rensselaer is very good in terms of research interests.”

“We are very enthusiastic about our collaboration with the Lally School of Rensselaer,” says Dean Wang, executive dean of the School of Management. “Our two institutions have very complementary strengths relating to global entrepreneurship and technology commercialization. We have had very constructive discussions and plan on launching specific collaborative activities this academic year.”

The collaboration will also create internship opportunities for students from each institution at enterprises in China and the U.S. The Lally School sees this agreement as a model for additional international collaborations that involve industry players and academic partners, according to Gautschi.