Representatives from the Taicang municipal government and Northwestern Polytechnical University sign the cooperation agreement on Jan 15. [Photo/WeChat account: Tcfbgw]

Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi'an, Northwest China's Shaanxi province, is about to establish a new campus in Taicang, Jiangsu Province, according to the Taicang Daily on Jan 15.

A Yangtze River Delta Institute is also expected to be erected in the city pursuant to the cooperation agreement signed between the university and the Taicang municipal government.

The two sides will explore how to jointly run the campus and coordinate its professional resources with Taicang's industrial strength so as to help the city's innovation and transformation.

According to the agreement, they will focus on internationalization of higher education and cultivate innovative talents to serve local economic and social development.

Civil aviation, intelligent manufacturing, new materials, flexible electronics and satellite applications will be the main research fields of the institute and the new campus.

The institute will be home to 10 renowned scholars, including academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and "Yangtze River" Distinguished Professors receiving China's highest academic award, who will lead a team of 500 researchers to promote the industrialization of cutting-edge research results and the settlement of good projects in the city.

The Taicang campus will recruit some 5,000 students and 1,200 teaching and administrative staff, and will house six colleges, three research centers and one training center.

NPU, a National Key University, specializes in education and research in the fields of materials, aerospace, navigation, engineering and physics, and is ranked 10th among China's engineering universities.