Postgraduate students from the University of Plymouth participated in a two-week trip to China as part of an international scientific and cultural exchange programme.

The visit was organised by the China Education Association for International Exchange through its Young Envoys Scholarship (YES), and furthered an existing partnership between the University of Plymouth and Hainan University.

It saw 21 students on a range of marine and environmental courses offered an immersive experience of fieldwork, expert-led lectures, and cultural exchange activities.

The lectures and workshops centred around topics including climate change, carbon sequestration, ocean acidification, blue carbon, biodiversity and the applications of eDNA technologies in marine science.

There were surveys of seagrass beds and mangroves along the coasts of Hainan, an island province in the South China Sea, and visits to companies connected to the fishing and aquaculture sectors.

The cultural activities included visits to museums, tourist attractions and traditional Hainan communities, and a celebration of UK-China collaborations attended by representatives from the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) – who praised the concept of such a course as “pioneering”.

The exchange was led by Professor of Marine Biology Professor Jason Hall-Spencer and PhD researcher Ari Drummond , in conjunction with Zhao Peng, an associate professor in the School of Marine Science and Engineering at Hainan University.

The Plymouth students also worked closely with 10 students from Hainan, with the programme covered by national media in China as an example of international scientific collaborations.