After one year of talks, Iowa State President Martin Jischke signed four cooperative agreements Monday afternoon with Fujia Yang, the president of Fudan University in Shanghai, China.

In order to bring the two universities closer together, the first part of the agreement, titled “Memorandum of Understanding between Iowa State University and Fudan University,” will encourage travel for faculty and students between both universities, said ISU physics professor James Vary.

The remaining three agreements involve the International Institute of Theoretical and Applied Physics (IITAP) at Iowa State and the Shanghai Research Center for Applied Physics.

Vary, who is also IITAP director, said the Chinese facility is a regional research center involving more than 20 universities in the Shanghai area.

IITAP, the second institute of its type in the world, is an international physics center set up in partnership with the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to promote world peace through the sharing of scientific advances, according to a press release.

The first of the IITAP agreements, the Mirror Server Agreement, requires the exchange of Internet databases between the universities containing information regarding courses, research and expertise, Vary said.

Under the Shanghai Link Agreement, the second IITAP accord will include a network that will be formed in order to jointly seek international funding for common research, he said. This link will also be used to transfer international technologies.

The last agreement, the IITAP Link Office, will open an ISU office in China with support from UNESCO.

Vary said ISU engineering professor David Kao is the co-director of the office in Shanghai. Kao will leave the country in the fall for an exchange.

“These agreements will increase our sharing of expertise, cooperation in scientific endeavors, and development of research and education collaborations,” Vary said.

If students participate in the exchange programs to China, they can also receive better job opportunities in the future, he said.