Under the support of Nanjing University, SME work closely with the University of Waterloo (UW) in establishing the China-Canada Financial Engineering and Risk Management Research Center in 2010. The center aims to further the joint research, academic communication in financial engineering and risk management and student exchange with the University of Waterloo. Nanjing University’s professor Li Xindan and a UW professor served as directors.

The center has received the support by Nanjing University. Sponsored by NSFC, the center worked with SME and Watrisq of UW in co-hosting the International Seminar of Big Data and Quantitative Behavioral Finance at Nanjing University in April 2012 and at UW in April 2014, respectively.

Chinese and Canadian professors chaired the seminars.

One important mission of the center is the joint master’s program in financial engineering which confers on its graduates double masters, that is, master’s in financial engineering from Nanjing University and master’s in quantitative finance from the faculty of mathematics of UW.

Students on this program will study in NJU for the first and the third years and will spend the second year at UW. So far, ten SME students have completed their study at UW, and three students are currently studying there.

Over the past five years, Professor Li Xindan, of NJU, visited UW several times, and the UW professors like Kenseng Tan visited Nanjing many times. In September 2013, Liu Haifei, an SME associate professor, went on a one-year study at UW, and this promoted the further development of the center.