The Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering (MEE) & the College of Engineering (CoE) at Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) were recently the hosts for the 5^th Conference on Precision Manufacturing Engineering & Automation, and the Symposium on Ultra-High-Speed Machining and Machining of Hard & Brittle Materials. MEE and CoE collaborated with the Institute of Machinery Manufacturing Technology of the China Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP) in organizing these events.

More than 70 world-renowned experts and scholars from academia and industry in the Greater Bay Area, mainland China and around the world attended the Conference and the Symposium. CoE Associate Dean Professor Zhang Bi chaired the events. SUSTech Acting Vice President Professor Zhang Dongxiao, CoE Dean Professor Xu Zhenghe, and Head of MEE Professor Rong Yiming gave their warm welcome speeches at the opening ceremony, respectively.

Nine top researchers in the field of precision machining from around the world gave their keynote speeches, following which were panel discussions on material embrittlement and damage skin-effect in high-speed machining, as well as on industry-university research collaboration. The panel discussions were respectively chaired by Professor Zhang Bi and Guangdong University of Technology (GDUT) Vice President Professor Wang Chengyong.

Both events provided plenty of room for attendees to have discussions and debates on key issues. On industry-university research collaboration, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) Professor Li Zexiang invited Professor R. Wertheim of Germany and Ms. Wen Li of Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Commission to introduce how their respective governments encourage and facilitate industry-university research collaboration. Attendees provided their own insights into the industry-university research collaboration.

On the second day, attendees of the conference visited Han’s Laser. They had extensive discussions and exchanged their views with Chief Engineer Dr. Chen Genyu and other leaders on the subject of academia-industry collaborations .