The city government of Yantai in northeast China will provide €300 million and a 300-acre campus to set up a University College Dublin campus which will focus on innovation, provide a pipeline of students to Ireland and support Irish enterprises seeking a foothold in China.

"UCD Yantai will be the first comprehensive international university north of the Yangtze river, only the fifth such institution in China and the first with innovation at its core," UCD president Hugh Brady said after signing the deal at a ceremony in Yantai.

The new university will be a joint venture with China Agricultural University (CAU). The project is planned to launch in 2015.

Dr Brady spoke of the importance of the China-Ireland relationship: "China's pace of development is breathtaking and UCD Yantai provides Ireland with a new bridgehead into one of China's most economically vibrant provinces."

Incubator centre

The Yantai municipal government, with the support of the provincial government in Shandong, will invest in construction, IT infrastructure and equipment of almost 300,000 sq m of academic, residential and recreational infrastructure.

The university will include a major incubator centre, called NovaUCD Shandong, modelled on NovaUCD in Dublin.

Gary Fallon, director of Enterprise Ireland's China office, said the UCD Yantai development was a potential game-changer for companies looking to do business in China. "It will dramatically enhance Ireland's profile in the world's second largest economy," he said.

The university will grow to accommodate a student population of up to 10,000 over five to seven years, and students will graduate with a UCD degree. Up to 1,000 of UCD Yantai’s students will study in Ireland every year as part of their degree course.