Victor Antonovich Sadovnichy (L, front), rector of Lomonosov Moscow State University, and Hu Haiyan (R, front), principal of Beijing Institute of Technology, hold a commemorative plate at the signing ceremony in Beijing. [Photo/bit.edu.cn]

A Sino-Russian university will be built in Shenzhen as a new collaboration in education between the two countries.

The new university, a joint effort of Beijing Institute of Technology and Lomonosov Moscow State University, is expected to break ground in 2015.

The signing ceremony of the cooperation agreement was held on Sept 5 in Beijing. According to the press release, the university will recruit the first class of students in 2016.

The new university will have teachers be selected from the two universities and professors recruited from around the world.

"We will send our best teachers to Shenzhen, and we would also like to invite professors from other countries", Victor Antonovich Sadovnichy, rector of MSU said, "But I don't like following other college's specific practices, as originality is always better than copying, so we have to innovate, and seek our own path."

The new university will apply the talent training of MSU, and teach using Chinese, English and Russian. The university will offer undergraduate, master and doctorate degrees, as well as non-degree educations.

Students that graduate from the university will be honored with diploma from MSU and a Chinese diploma.

"We would like to recruit talented students from China and also welcome students from Russia and other countries in the future", Sadovnichy said.

Sadovnichy says that the new university will open with majors such as IT technology, economics, management, law, Russian learning, media, and will later offer chemistry, geology, environmental protection and machine manufacturing.

"We chose to build the university in Shenzhen, as the city has adequate material basis for founding a world-class university," said Hu Haiyan, principal of BIT. "They have shown their strong determination, which impresses me a lot."

The establishment of the university is based on a memorandum of undestanding signed between the education heads of the two countries witnessed by Chinese president Xi Jinping and Russian president Vladimir Putin in May this year.

Established in 1755, MSU is one of the oldest and largest universities in Russia, and has produced 11 Nobel Prize laureates. BIT is a noted university in China for its disciplines in engineering, materials science, chemistry, physics and mathematics.