It is a new avenue for admission into a Western PhD program. The PhD program to which you are admitted depends on the participating department to which you apply at Western. You must fulfil the program and departmental degree requirements. Your degree will be conferred by your home department at Western.
Students expertise will be cultivated in a highly interdisciplinary and multi-cultural research environment, involving China, Canada and other countries. Students will benefit from hands-on training with multiple world-leading scientists and develop complementary skills and expertise through access to unique synchrotron radiation facilities and tools.
The Soochow University-Western University Centre for Synchrotron Radiation Research (or the Centre) was officially established in November 2012 at Soochow University and is operating as a research centre both at Soochow and Western University. The Centre Director is Professor of Chemistry T.K. Sham of Western University. Currently, the Centre membership includes 17 Western faculty and 7 Soochow faculty. The mandate of the Centre is to promote exchange and collaboration in both research and training in the area of synchrotron radiation research.
The application deadline is determined by the department to which you will apply. Click here for more details.
See the detailed admission requirements of participating departments here.
Since this 2+2 program requires joint supervision from both universities, it is highly recommended that you contact a professor who is a member of the Centre and whose research area is of your primary interest, either at Western or at Soochow. You will not need to find the joint supervisor yourself; your primary supervisor will do that for you.
Although the 2+2 program involves the collaboration of both universities, the only admission requirements you are obliged to meet are those specified by Western University.
If your first language is not English, you must meet the English proficiency requirements as specified by the School of Graduate and Post-Doctoral Studies and the home department to which you intend to apply.
Although Chinese is the native language used for daily life in China, English is sufficient for academic purposes and is used extensively at Soochow University.
The 2+2 joint PhD program requires that synchrotron radiation (SR) be the essential component of your research project. As such, only Centre faculty members are eligible supervisors for 2+2 program applicants.
All program-related travels, when determined necessary for research purpose and approved by your supervisor(s), including trips to synchrotron facilities, will be covered by the supervisors. This excludes your initial voyage to and final trip from Western, i.e., joining and leaving the university.
Although Chinese is the native language used for daily life in China, English is sufficient for academic purposes.