On October 15, 2016, Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) signed a cooperation agreement with the Beijing Institute of Collaborative Innovation (BICI) and University of Michigan (UMich). The three sides will carry out joint research and jointly build the Advanced Manufacturing Global Collaboratory. Ma Xingrui, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee and Secretary of the CPC Shenzhen Municipal Committee; Xu Qin, Mayor of Shenzhen; Zhang Hu, Member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Shenzhen Municipal Committee and Executive Vice Mayor of Shenzhen; Mark Schlissel, President of UMich; S. Jack Hu, Vice President for Research at UMich; Zhou Xinjian, President of BICI; Council Chairwoman Guo Yurong and President Chen Shiyi of SUSTech attended the signing ceremony.

Prior to the signing ceremony, the municipal leaders met with the delegation.

Scene of the signing ceremony

Witnessed by the municipal leaders and guests, Wu Chuanyue, Vice President of SUSTech; Hu and Zhou signed the “MASTER COLLABORATION AGREEMENT BETWEEN REGENTS OF The UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AND SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AND BEIJING INSTITUTE OF COLLABORATIVE INNOVATION” and the “MOU Between Beijing Institute of Collaborative Innovation and Regents of the University of Michigan and Southern University of Science and Technology” on behalf of respective sides. Wang Duoxiang, Vice President of SUSTech, hosted the signing ceremony.

Under the tripartite agreements, SUSTech will conduct research and build the Advanced Manufacturing Global Collaboratory in association with BICI and UMich. While achieving outstanding research findings, the cooperation will help SUSTech’s young scholars establish close relations with world top scientists, keep pace with frontier international technology and rapidly improve their capacity for globalized innovation.

The tripartite cooperation was strongly supported by the CPC Shenzhen Municipal Committee, the Shenzhen Municipal People’s Government and relevant functional departments. During visiting the USA in May 2016, Hu Chunhua, Secretary of the CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee and Shenzhen’s municipal leaders witnessed the establishment of the “Michigan-Shenzhen Trade, Investment & Innovation Cooperation Center” in Detroit. At the signing ceremony, on behalf of SUSTech, Chen Shiyi signed an MOU with UMich and BICI. Afterwards the senior executives of UMich and SUSTech exchanged visits and reached consensus to facilitate the signing of the cooperation agreement and the MOU.

UMich is a prestigious general public university in the USA. It was ranked 21st on Times Higher Education World Rankings 2016 and 17th on USNews Best Global Universities Ranking. Its exchanges and cooperation with SUSTech, as well as enterprises in Shenzhen and the rest of China will bring about innovation in the mode of research-education cooperation and production-learning-research integration, promote higher education and research institutes to serve the sustainability of the society and humankind, and further improve the internationalization level and international influence of Shenzhen.

The International Collaborative Laboratory of Advanced Manufacturing will further integrate world top research strength, give play to the advantage of top-notch universities, and rapidly develop globally influential innovation capacity. In the near term, BICI will build three international collaborative laboratories (advanced manufacturing, photoelectric materials and devices, advanced materials and processing) with world top universities like SUSTech, UMich, Stanford University (Stanford), Northwestern University (NU), Peking University and Tsinghua University. Each laboratory has brought together some world top scientists, most of whom are world leading talents in respective fields. Universities like Stanford and NU planned to train PhD students with BICI and SUSTech every year, and the admission work has begun. Training PhD students in association with world top universities will become an important path of high-level talent training for SUSTech.

In the future, based on the existing cooperation, SUSTech and BICI will further integrate the strength of world top universities to build the Southern Institute of Collaborative Innovation in Shenzhen, undertake the construction of some international collaborative laboratories, develop some world leading technologies, build an advanced technology R&D base, an achievement transformation base and a training base for leading innovation and entrepreneurship talents based on domestic universities and featuring international cooperation, and play a demonstrating and guiding role in building Shenzhen into a global technology and industry innovation center.

Background

Beijing Institute of Collaborative Innovation

The Beijing Institute of Collaborative Innovation (BICI) is an advanced technology research institute established on the basis of 14 domestic top universities such as Peking University, Tsinghua University and University of Science and Technology of China. As an international innovation base, BICI has 18 collaborative innovation centers, as well as branches in the USA and Hong Kong. Since its establishment, BICI has made remarkable achievements in research and talent training, and earned high praise from Party and state leaders. Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) joined BICI as a founding member in 2015, and has played an increasingly significant role since.

University of Michigan

University of Michigan (UMich) is a prestigious general public university in the USA. It was ranked 21st on Times Higher Education World Rankings 2016 and 17th on USNews Best Global Universities Ranking. Known as public ivy, UMich is one of the 12 founding members of the Association of American Universities, a major academic league in the USA. As a world top general university, UMich has made outstanding achievements and enjoys great influence in diverse disciplinary fields. Surveys show that over 70 percent of majors run by UMich are ranked among the top 10 in the USA. As a major US “academic university”, UMich boasts the highest research budget, a strong academic atmosphere, outstanding faculty, as well as top-notch law school, medical school, college of engineering, business school, school of art & design and college of literature, science and the arts. UMich’s alumni include one US president, 22 Nobel laureates, over 30 university presidents, as well as numberless industrial elitists.