On September 21, 2018, the meeting of the Management Council, University Consortium on Engineering Education and Research is being held in Conference Room 506, Main Teaching Building, Chongqing University. Liu Hanlong, vice president of Chongqing University, has attended and addressed the meeting. Queen's University Belfast, University College London, Cardiff University, the University of Nottingham, Warwick University, and University of Leeds, and the International Affairs Office, Scientific and Technological Development Institute and some schools of Excellence 9 (E9) have sent representatives to attend the meeting.

Liu Hanlong has extended his congratulations on the “2018 International Conference on Frontier Science and Technology Innovation – International Conference on Intelligent Manufacturing and Sustainable Energy” that is to be held on the weekend. Liu has pointed out that the forum does not only reflect the care of people for the challenges facing the international education and global industry development, but also contributes to further exchange and communication between universities from the UK and China in shared academic areas. He has added that the extensive discussion among the attendants would strengthen ties between people and make the cooperation between the universities of the two countries even closer. The friendship and cooperation between them will reach a higher level.

Xu Jun, director of the International Cooperation and Exchange Office, has briefly introduced the internationalization efforts made by Chongqing University. By now, Chongqing University has signed inter-university cooperation agreements with 10 universities of the UK and extensive cooperation and exchange activities have been carried out. Chongqing University has prioritized the overseas exchange of students as part of its internationalization efforts. From January 1 to August 31, 2018, a total of 2,431 CQU students were studying abroad. Some of them were pursuing foreign academic degrees or joint (double) academic degrees, and some of them were on an exchange visit or short-term communication visit. In particular, the UK is the second most popular country for study abroad among CQU students, and is also one of the favorite countries for overseas study. In this summer alone, as many as 271 CQU students studied in the UK.

Professor Stan Scott from the Queen's University Belfast, the leading organization of the University Consortium, and Yuan Chao from the International Cooperation and Exchange Office of Southeast University have summarized the work of the University Consortium in the past one year. Emphasis has been laid on the inspiring achievements made by the “Future Engineer Leadership and Innovation Academy (FELIA)”. The Chinese universities and UK universities as members of the Project will respectively send 2 doctoral candidates to this Project every year. The doctoral candidates would attend classes that last 2 weeks. It was organized by Beijing Institute of Technology in 2017. In 2018, it will be held in Nanjing again, with “design and application of deep learning cloud accelerator” as the theme, which is closely related to integrated circuit and artificial intelligence. Interaction with the industrial circle will be seen at the event, and it will serve as a platform where the students may communicate with world famous IC enterprises.

In addition, the Management Council has announced two new members, the Liverpool University and the University of Cambridge. Professor Li Kang from the University of Leeds has proposed the preparation for construction of “”China-UK Industry-University-Research Network”. The FELIA will be held at Chongqing University in 2019. The attending representatives have had a discussion about the integrating role of the University Consortium and the balance of cooperation among the University Consortium members. In the last part, Professor Mark Price, the vice president of Queen's University Belfast, has delivered the summary speech.

Gao Xiang from the International Cooperation and Exchange Office, Chongqing University, has presided at the Meeting.

During the event, Zhang Fuli, director of the International Cooperation and Exchange Office of Northwestern Polytechnical University, has announced the decision of the Excellence 9 to build the China-Australia Polytechnic University Alliance in collaboration with colleges and universities of Australia. The E9 members have also discussed the key emphasis in internationalization of the next year.

Background information:

University Consortium on Engineering Education and Research was founded in May 2017, and is made up of the 9 members of Excellence 9 good at engineering and the 9 engineering colleges and universities in the UK of the Russell Group. Its mission is to improve the research and teaching quality and cultivate leading figures in the engineering area by leading interdisciplinary cooperation.

Nine Chinese members of the University Consortium: Southeast University, Beijing Institute of Technology, Chongqing University, Dalian University of Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical University, South China University of Technology, Tianjin University and Tongji University, with the Secretariat set up at Southeast University.

Nine UK members of the University Consortium: Queen’s University Belfast, University of Birmingham, Cardiff University, University College London, University of Nottingham, Warwick University, Liverpool University, University of Leeds and University of Cambridge, with the Secretariat set up at Queen’s University Belfast.