Hello. It looks like you�re using an ad blocker that may prevent our website from working properly. To receive the best Tortoise experience possible, please make sure any blockers are switched off and refresh the page.

If you have any questions or need help, let us know at memberhelp@tortoisemedia.com

Friend of Tortoise Exclusive

Sensemaker Live: China’s soft power game — is Beijing buying influence in the UK?

Sensemaker Live: China’s soft power game — is Beijing buying influence in the UK?

This event is exclusive to Friends of Tortoise

sensemaker live is in partnership with santander


Chinese students are worth almost £2 billion to the UK’s higher education sector, with some major British universities depending on Chinese students for 20% of tuition fee revenue. Chinese software firm Tencent recently made a donation of £700,000 to Oxford University and, in exchange, the University promptly renamed the Wykeham Chair of Physics as the Tencent-Wykeham Professorship. It’s no surprise, then, that the higher education sector panicked when the pandemic hit – it appears to have become dependent on Chinese money for its very survival. What impact is Chinese investment in higher education having on British research? And what systems are in place to monitor the flow of information out of research labs, to safeguard national security and protect intellectual property?

watch now
editor and invited experts

James Harding
Editor and Co-founder

Dr Janet Ilieva
Founder and Director of Education Insight

Henk Koopmans
Chief Executive Officer of R&D at Huawei UK