Confucius Institute staff
Mark Schofield
Director of the Confucius Institute
Mark Schofield is Professor of Learning and Teaching at Edge Hill University and leads on strategy and policy development in teaching, learning and associated research. He has contributed to teaching and curriculum design in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Education, Health, and Teaching and Learning in Clinical Practice. He provides external consultancy in learning and teaching, nationally and internationally, increasingly on technology enhanced learning which has been a prime focus of the visiting professorships at Leeds Beckett University, University of Northampton, Hunan First Normal University and Chongqing Normal University (China).
He has a lead role in the University practice based research initiative for education and health professionals. In addition to his Dean’s role he is Academic Director of the SOLSTICE Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. He is a Fellow of the higher education academy and was Co-chair of the Staff and Educational Development Association Publications committee and a member of the Executive. He is Director of the Edge Hill University Centre for Learning and Teaching. He has been an active member of the national higher education Funding Council England/higher education a higher education academy/Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) Joint e-learning Partnership Board and was critical friend to the national JISC Users and Innovations Programme. He has acted as an expert adviser to the HEA eLearning Observatory initiative, to government groups envisioning technological support for learning in the future, was a member of the HEA eLearning ‘Think Tank’ and sits on the editorial board of the Innovations in Education and Teaching International Journal.
His past work on research, curriculum design and eLearning has cemented firm international partnerships including the University of Johannesburg, the higher education Learning and Teaching Association South Africa, the United States Air Force Academy and the international DLAC (Distance Learning and Collaboration) group. He has been engaged as a Senior Fellow in Educational Development at the University of Windsor, Ontario and has recently been awarded a grant by the Hunan provincial government in China as an adviser on learning and teaching to Hunan First Normal University (Chairman Mao’s teacher training university) and others in the province,. In 2011 he was received the prestigious National Teaching Fellowship award from the higher education academy for excellence in teaching and development of colleagues at Edge Hill University, nationally and internationally.
Yi Zheng
Chinese Director
Yi Zheng, professor of Chongqing Normal University (CNU), China, specialises in English Literature and TESOL, as well as intercultural communication. He is a supervisor for the MEL and MTESOL in CNU.
Professor Zheng has 30 years of teaching and research experience in higher education institutions. He also has more than 20 years of experience in international collaborative education and teacher training. He once served as a visiting scholar at RMIT in Australia and Edge Hill University in UK. In the last decades, he has published more than 10 books and 30 articles. In addition, he was granted the Textbook Development Award by the Ministry of Education of China in 2025 for his special contribution to work-based textbook development.
Committed to higher education, he has specially made great contribution to the internationalisation of Chinese universities and colleges. Previously, he served as the Director of Sinhala Department at Chongqing Normal University for 7 years, conducting international collaboration and exchange programmes with the universities across the world, including the collaborative undergraduate programme between UOK and CNU, the Confucius Institute at EHU. Confucius Institutes aim to enhance people-to-people communication and cultural exchanges between China and the rest of the world. The Confucius Institute at EHU is dedicated to this aim and tries to serve as gateway to China by providing services to local students, teachers and communities as well as supporting local business needs in terms of Chinese language teaching, cultural activities and seminars, etc.
Professor Zheng hopes that the Confucius Institute at EHU can be a hub of learning Chinese language, Chinese culture, and China studies, thus promoting mutual understanding, communication and cooperation between China and the UK.