UNITED STATES

US: Berkeley reveals plan for centre in China
The University of California, Berkeley, announced last week that it plans to open a large research and teaching facility in Shanghai as part of a broader plan to bolster its presence in China, writes David Barboza for The New York Times.The public university, which is struggling under budget constraints imposed by the state of California, said the Shanghai centre would cater to engineering graduate students and be financed over the next five years largely by the Shanghai government and companies operating here. The programme is expected to begin in July 2012.
Berkeley's announcement comes as other prominent American universities are racing to build closer ties to China, hoping to attract new students, deepen research capabilities and set up sites to train business professionals to succeed in the booming Chinese market. New York University and Duke University are each building a campus in the Shanghai area, and Stanford is building a $5 million research centre on the campus of the elite Peking University in the city of Beijing.
Full report on The New York Times site