News and Events

Beijing students to make UK ‘dream’ trip

30 November 2009

Chinese group to visit BU after winning the British Council’s Dream Lab challenge.

Students from the Beijing Institute of Fashion have won the first ever Dream Lab challenge supported by BU and the British Council.

The ‘3-2-1’ team outperformed four other teams from Chinese universities during a live final at ‘The Orange’ in Beijing which received widespread media attention throughout China.

Their prize includes a package of scholarships worth £40,000 offered by BU and project partner Kingston University. The winning team will also visit the UK next April including a trip to BU.

This year’s challenge was headed by Bournemouth and Kingston together with the Science Museum, the Design Museum and the Wellcome Trust in conjunction with the Education UK Marketing team in the British Council. Together, they invited students from institutions across China to use their creative skills to communicate the science of sleeping and dreaming.

Joining the Beijing Institute of Fashion in the finals were teams from the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, Xiamen University, South East University in Shanghai and Hunan University.

Professor Nick Petford, BU’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Enterprise, served as one of the project’s five expert judges. Professor Petford travelled to Beijing for the final after delivering a British Council ‘Smart Talk’ at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences on the importance of computer animation to the digital economy of the 21st century.

“BU is excited to be involved in this ground-breaking project that will help bring design and science closer together,” said Professor Petford.

“As a judge, I’m pleased to see how well the students from China expressed their ideas having worked so closely with their UK counterparts from Bournemouth and Kingston. This is a fun and fascinating competition which I hope will continue for years to come.”

Dream Lab was designed to focus on China in 2009 and to complement the students’ existing studies in design and related fields. The competition asked participants to practise and demonstrate many of the attributes and skills required by employers in the 21st century, including teamwork, using ideas from different disciplines to bring about innovation, creative thinking, communications and marketing skills.

Over a period of weeks building up to the final, PhD students from BU and Kingston helped their Chinese colleagues with science and design aspects of the project.

The UK-based students linked with their Chinese counterparts via interactive study spaces hosted by Kingston which supported communications between the two countries.

Dream Lab is one of a number of campaigns developed in support of the Prime Minister’s Initiative for International Education, a five-year strategy to support the UK’s position in the international education market.

It is envisaged that a similar challenge may be held in Japan or South Korea in years to come to come to extend the opportunities for students in those countries