Suzhou is a city with a population of approximately 11 million in East China. Its city centre is only 100km away from Shanghai, leading to an overlap of suburbs. Suzhou has the busiest inland river port in the world and is a major location of trade and commerce. Between 2000 and 2014, the city grew at the fastest rate of any city with over five million people. The Nature Index named Suzhou one of the top 50 science cities in the world. The city has been dubbed ’Venice of the East’