Shenzhen strengthens higher education

Nobel laureate Thomas Sargent joined Peking University HSBC Business School (PHBS) to set up a research center in Shenzhen on June 8, a sign of the city further improving its higher education.

Shenzhen, as China's hub of innovation and startups, is in urgent need of education resources, so it has recently accelerated its steps to "import" renowned institutions and talented personnel. About 18 Sino-foreign joint universities are expected to be set up in Shenzhen's Longgang district in the near future.

In addition, four institutes named after Nobel laureates will be established in the city, with the new Sargent Institute of Quantitative Economics and Finance the first social science research institute named after a Nobel laureate on the Chinese mainland.

"I admire the intelligent students and young faculty members I have met here," said Sargent at the ceremony announcing the institute.

With his focus on the fields of macroeconomics, monetary economics and time series econometrics, Sargent won his Nobel Prize for his pioneering "rational expectations theory" and ranks among the most cited economists in the world. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2011 along with Christopher Sims for their "empirical research on cause and effect in macroeconomics".

Sargent will be in residence at PHBS for up to two months each year and hopes to help "shed some light on economic theories as well as empirical studies".

PHBS Dean Hai Wen said the industrial upgrading in Shenzhen indicates there is a huge demand for talent in many fields, including biology, physics, chemistry, finance, law, the arts, and health care.

Nobel laureate Thomas Sargent addresses at the establishment ceremony of the research center in Shenzhen on June 8. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]