The thesis ‘Intensive IELTS Writing Preparation in China and Japan’ was given a British Council Research Assessment Award in 2014. In 2015/16 he was a recipient of the Newton Fund Scholarship – a competitive grant to promote researcher mobility and encourage British-Chinese academic relations – as well as funding to support different sections of upcoming overseas research trips from the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) and the ESRC. In 2016 Tony will spend two months at the British Council in Tokyo, and a subsequent six months working at Zhejiang University under the guidance of Professor Lianzhen He, Dean of International Studies.