Timothy O'Shea advises the Confucius institute be integrated into the university and wider community. Zhang Bin / China Daily

Apart from education, academic institutions have a duty to promote international understanding, says University of Edinburgh vice-chancellor Timothy O'Shea

Timothy O'Shea has a dream for the University of Edinburgh's Confucius Institute - to promote mutual understanding internationally. "If there are more people in Scotland who understand China, and more people in China who understand Scotland, then we will have more mutual understanding at the world level," says the University's vice-chancellor, sitting in his office at the heart of the Scottish capital.

In 2005, the University of Edinburgh became one of Europe's first universities to establish a Confucius Institute on campus, in partnership with Fudan University in Shanghai.

The institute's regular students have grown to about 300, and its courses have broadened over the years to include Mandarin, culture, business and recently, a university leadership training program for Chinese education specialists.

"There has been growing interest in China and more and more people want to establish competence in Chinese," he says.

Started by the Chinese government in 2004 to promote Chinese language and culture abroad, Confucius Institutes are nonprofit organizations affiliated with Western academic institutions.

By April 2012, 129 Confucius Institutes had been established in 34 European countries. There were 358 Confucius Institutes around the world in 2011.

Based at the baronial mansion Abden House, the University of Edinburgh's Confucius Institute hosts a diverse group of students both from the university and the city.

"Some people are intellectually curious and others want it for their CV, to get jobs. Some have a post in China, and want to build a foundation, quite a few have a Chinese boyfriend or Chinese girlfriend, and then you have students who have been living in China and came back here, and want to maintain their language skills," he explains.

As well as having diverse purposes for their learning, the students also come from a wide range of places, including the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Malta, South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Africa.

As home to one of the more experienced Confucius Institutes in Europe, the University of Edinburgh was given responsibility to host the European Confucius Institute Working Symposium, a three day conference this April attended by principals from 75 Confucius Institutes in 26 European countries.

O'Shea says that one piece of advice he would give to the wave of universities establishing Confucius Institutes now, is to provide suitable premises.

Abden House is a specially refurbished building for Confucius Institute. With a library, lecture rooms and office space, it is a suitable location not just for hosting lessons, but also organizing meetings, conferences and social events.

O'Shea also advises that the institute is integrated into the university and wider community, so that the student population can be drawn from beyond the language department.

"It should be a part of the life of the university and the city, because people can access it easily and be welcomed," he says.

O'Shea refutes criticism from some Western scholars that Confucius Institutes' affiliations with Western universities may add bias to academic research on China.

In comparison, the British Council, French Alliance and Goethe-Institut, which are academic bodies funded by the British, French, and German governments respectively to teach their languages overseas, are run as autonomous institutes.

"Academics are autonomous, they decide what they can say," O'Shea says.

The expertise of university staff could, however, be of benefit to Confucius Institutes, he believes.

"So people studying the history of China, the geography of China, the anthropology of China, the business model of China - you want these specialists to spend a part of their time in the Confucius Institute helping and also a part of their time in the Confucius Institute learning," he explains.

The type of help they give could range from holding lectures to helping institute staff plan lessons.

According to O'Shea, the university's original decision to establish a Confucius Institute was partly due to its existing ties with China.

It has established research partnerships with many Chinese universities, including in stem cell research with Peking University and computer science with Fudan University.

In 2005, it established a representative office in China, which primarily functions as a base to maintain good relationships with partner Chinese universities.

Historically, Huang Kuan, (1829-1878), the first Chinese person to study medicine abroad, graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1855. To commemorate this link, the university erected a statue of Huang facing the Confucius Institute.

Today, the number of Chinese students studying at the University of Edinburgh has grown to about 800 each year.

Recent Chinese alumni include Zhong Nanshan, who identified the SARS virus, and Li Wei, who served as the president of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics between 2002 and 2009.

O'Shea praises the Chinese students at his university for being active in voluntary work outside their studies.

"They are very good students. We have a volunteering scheme, where people help local community causes, and the Chinese students are very active in that," he says.

"They like to do good things. I think that's very pleasing. At the same time, they maintain a Chinese identity," he adds, recalling a student-led celebration a few years ago combining Chinese New Year with Burns Night, a Scottish festival commemorating the poet Robert Burns.

"We had a very nice event. We had dimsum and haggis. We had green tea and whisky. We had a lot of students wearing Chinese jackets and kilts. We had students playing the qin, and students playing the bagpipes, and we sang Auld Lang Syne in Chinese," he recalls.

His one criticism of Chinese students at the university is that they often work too hard and neglect other activities.

"They should probably study a bit less and do more mountain climbing, more country dancing and go around the galleries a bit more," he says.

He also advises them to be flexible with regard to the job market on leaving university.

"Don't say to yourself, 'I must have this or that job.' Look for opportunities, if you see something interesting, even if it's only for three months," he says.

Born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1949, O'Shea came to study in the UK at a young age and graduated with a computer science degree from Sussex University.

"After I graduated, I worked for a summer as a chef, or, under-chef to be exact. I learnt some useful things for when I'm cooking dinner," he says, explaining that he developed an interest for cooking as a child when his grandmother gave him a blue frying pan with a wooden spoon to cook his own eggs.

Despite once wanting to be a chef, O'Shea has found his passion in the education sector and believes he is contributing to a worthy cause.

"I'm an idealist," he says, explaining that he sees universities as having four important responsibilities to fulfill.

"One is to teach, but also to turn learners into autonomous learners. The second is to make new knowledge. The third is to collect special objects, like music books or instruments. And the last is to promote mutual understanding between countries, as many problems can't be solved by one university or one country alone," he says.

(China Daily 02/22/2013 page28)