The Suzhou municipal government and Nanjing University sign a cooperation agreement to build a Suzhou campus July 22. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Suzhou city deepened cooperation with renowned universities and institutes by signing 112 projects worth 57.5 billion yuan ($8.75 billion) on Nov 19, local media reported.

The projects include university-enterprise cooperation, cutting-edge sci-tech result incubators, and innovative sci-tech research projects.

Statistics show that Suzhou has set up 130 joint platforms with universities and institutes, 1,870 industry-university-research cooperative bodies, and 14,000 joint projects.

Sixty-two university principals, 14 academicians and 33 research institute directors attended the signing ceremony.

They also witnessed Suzhou being awarded the honorary title of a demonstration city in promoting industry-university-research cooperation and the launch of a map indicating Suzhou's established ties with universities and institutes across the country.

Suzhou has ranked first in Jiangsu for 11 years for its comprehensive strength of scientific and technological innovation. It has introduced 20 measures to encourage the establishment of sci-tech result incubators, the innovation and entrepreneurship of high-end talents, and the commercialization of sci-tech results.

The city also encourages renowned scientists to set up laboratories named after them in Suzhou. Teams with recognized innovative results will be awarded financial support of up to 50 million yuan.