President Xi Jinping of the People's Republic of China is to visit Imperial College London next week as part of his four day state visit to the UK.

The College is the UK’s number one research collaborator with China and during the visit Imperial will showcase some of the world’s most advanced labs specialising in big data research and medical robotics. 

The President will be joined at Imperial by the Duke of York, the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, and several senior Chinese ministers. 

They will be welcomed to the College on 21 October by Imperial’s President Alice Gast and Provost James Stirling. President Xi will learn about Imperial’s close research links to China, and will also be introduced to some of the College’s 2,000-strong Chinese student community.

President Xi and the other guests will learn about Imperial research which highlights the College’s Strategic themes of bringing together expertise from different disciplines to solve global challenges, and of strengthening collaboration with partners across the world. 

In September  Professor Gast and colleagues made their own visit to China to promote education, research and innovation ties. During that trip Professor Gast addressed the World Economic Forum in Dalian, speaking about how the public and private sectors can successfully collaborate to boost innovation, research and development. 

This will be the third State Visit to include Imperial within three years, following visits President Park Geun-hye of South Korea and President Tony Tan of Singapore.