Official Opening of 15 Woburn Square, home of UCL IOE Confucius Institute

On June 22nd 2017 the official opening of the altered, revitalised and refurbished home of UCL IOE Confucius Institute took place at 15 Woburn Square, London. UCL Provost and President Michael Arthur cut the ribbon alongside PKU President Lin Jianhua, Minister Zhu Qin of the Chinese Embassy to the UK and Dame Nicola Brewer, Vice Provost (International) at UCL.

The IOE Confucius Institute building has been designed to provide a base for a teacher training, administrative and research centre. In keeping with its Bloomsbury conservation area surroundings, and located at the heart of the UCL’s campus, each room in the building has been thoughtfully and purposefully designed, combining interiors chosen to reflect Chinese and British design at the same time as providing a flexible multimedia-enabled teaching and working environment.

The building will provide a prestigious home for the IOE Confucius Institute and establish London as a key centre outside China for leading the development of the teaching and learning of Mandarin Chinese in schools.

Katharine Carruthers, IOE Confucius Institute Director explains:

The IOE Confucius Institute building sits at the heart of our strategy to achieve our goal to develop a solid infrastructure for teaching Chinese, and will play a key role in enabling the training of teachers to deliver the effective teaching and learning of Chinese language in schools in England.

UCL President & Provost, Professor Michael Arthur said

I’m delighted to welcome President Lin to UCL once again; this time to the wonderful new facility at the IOE Confucius Institute. The new building will play a key role in enabling the teaching and learning of Mandarin in England and have huge long-term benefits for children and young people as well as for the development of bilateral relationships between the UK and China.

PKU President, Professor Lin Jianhua said

It’s an honour to be invited to open the Model Confucius Institute at UCL. We’re very happy to be working with UCL to promote Chinese culture and language in the UK, as part of our deep strategic partnership