Nokia announced today a significant expansion of its Research and Development (R&D) undertakings in China.

This expansion includes the launch of a Nokia Postdoctoral Program, the creation of a unit to promote open standards and technology localization, and the establishment of a CDMA R&D facility in Beijing. The announcements also include a plan to expand the scale of product design and development for Nokia mobile phones at the Nokia Product Creation Center in Beijing.

Nokia China has been granted approval by the Ministry of Personnel to run a Postdoctoral Program. The program will provide educational and research opportunities for postdoctoral researchers to work on advanced telecommunication technology research projects at the Nokia Research Center (NRC) in China. The Program will accelerate technological innovation by attracting high potential students and enabling wider cooperation with the China research community. Postdoctoral researchers will concentrate on areas such as Asian user interfaces, 3G and other radio technology, IPv6 and Chinese mobile applications.

Also announced was the establishment of a Nokia technology platforms unit in China. The unit will work with the Chinese developer community through Forum Nokia, and will be responsible for the licensing of Nokia Series 60 platform and Java technologies and make contribution to standardization activities in China. As part of a global initiative to promote the development of open technologies and applications, Nokia is planning to cooperate with 10 Chinese universities, providing knowledge transfer in Symbian technology through training, seminars and coursework. The transfer of Symbian knowledge has already commenced with the universities of BUPT, Tsinghua, Beihang, BIT, and ICT/CAS.

In a further move to consolidate its role in the growing CDMA market, Nokia published plans to establish a CDMA R&D facility in Beijing. The new R&D facility will focus on software support and technical expertise in CDMA technology, catering to the unique market and operator-specific needs of CDMA in China. It will also serve as a center for technology transfer and local talent development and is expected to be fully operational in June this year.