The funding, provided by Research Councils UK, will enable scientists' visits to universities and businesses in Britain and China. It will also pay for technical workshops in which researchers and engineers will learn about each others' work and have the opportunity to forge new partnerships.

Researchers say the project will lead to quicker production of the next generation of mobile phones and other wireless communications devices, with new technology becoming available in products and services at an increasing pace.

Regius Professor of Engineering, Peter Grant, (right) at the University of Edinburgh, said: "We are very pleased to receive this award, the only Government grant for UK universities' collaborative work on future mobile system fesign with Chinese academics and industry.

"4G or long term evolution (LTE) is the next standard which aims to bring together all the different worlwide standards into a single common LTE standard," he explains."This will be based on current technological innovations but  it will incorperate further technical advances to minimise interference between cells etc and thus permit an increase in the data throughput to and from mobile users.

"In practice I expect  high download speed  to  be available close to the base station or access point, but at the cell edge due to the longer propagation distance and higher noise and interference levels the rate will be 1/100 that at the cell centre."

"The work this award will fund will build on our years of experience in collaborating on mobile systems research with other universities and enterprises under the Mobile VCE partnership."

Sources:  UK Science China Bridge
MobileVCE Partnership
Professor Peter Grant