Third-year PhD student Li Yu has received grants from the Great Britain-China Educational Trust (GBCET) and Henry Lester Trust to support his studies.

Li Yu has received a £3,000 Chinese Student Award from the GBCET to support his research into polymers for biomedical applications. The award supports students of Chinese nationality studying for a PhD in any subject at a UK university. 

The award is administered by the Great Britain-China Educational Trust, a charity supporting Chinese students in the UK and British postgraduate students for the study of Chinese language through its two funded awards.

He has also received a separate £2,000 grant from the Henry Lester Trust which awards education grants to Chinese nationals studying in the UK at a postgraduate level or higher.

“It's a great honour to be awarded. I would like to thank my supervisor Dr Rongjun Chen for supporting my award applications and providing excellent guidance during my PhD studies." Mr Li Yu Department of Chemical Engineering

Li Yu is a student in Dr Rongjun Chen’s research group whose work focuses on the development of new approaches for the synthesis of novel multifunctional biocompatible and biodegradable polymers.

Originally from the east coast of China, near Shanghai, Li completed his undergraduate degree in materials science with a speciality in polymer science from Tongji University in Shanghai before earning a Masters degree in materials science and engineering at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany.

Commenting on his award Li Yu said: “It's a great honour to be awarded. I would like to thank my supervisor Dr Rongjun Chen for supporting my award applications and providing excellent guidance during my PhD studies.”

Dr Chen added: “Li Yu is a very talented polymer chemist. During his PhD research he has successfully completed some extremely complex and extensive polymer synthesis work, and developed new methods for synthesis of a library of novel biodegradable polymers with great potential for various biomedical applications.

I am delighted that Li was awarded both the Great Britain-China Educational Trust Award and the Henry Lester Award in recognition of his excellent PhD work.”

Li Yu is currently investigating how his new synthesis methods can be extended to other types of new polymer families.