On June 15, 2018, SUSTech and MIT signed a collaboration agreement. The signing ceremony was held on the campus of MIT. SUSTech President Shiyi Chen, and MIT Associate Provost Richard Lester attended the ceremony. Hosted by Provost Lester, Zhenghe Xu, Dean of College of Engineering at SUSTech, and Anantha Chandakasan, Dean of School of Engineering at MIT, signed the agreement. 

Other attendees include Jijun Xing, Science and Technology Counsellor from Consulate-General of the People’s Republic of China in New York, Ying Cai, Director General, Foreign Affairs Office of Shenzhen Municipality, Sheng Liu, Director General, Economy, Trade and Information Commission of Shenzhen Municipality, Yongsheng Liang, Director General, Science, Technology and Innovation Commission of Shenzhen Municipality, Fujin Sun, Director General, Human Resources and Social Security Administration of Shenzhen Municipality, and Tongtao Wang, Science and Technology Consul from Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in New York. Also present was Gang Chen, the Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering, head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. On the SUSTech side, the attendees are Vice President Chun Lu, Dean of the Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering Dapeng Yu, Head and professor of the Computer Science and Engineering Department Xin Yao and Qi Hao.

According to the agreement, SUSTech and the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT will collaboratively build the Centers for Mechanical Engineering Research and Education. There will be a center on the main campus of MIT and a center on the campus of SUSTech. Dean Zhenghe Xu and Professor Gang Chen will serve as the faculty director for the centers at SUSTech and at MIT respectively. The collaboration activities include joint research, joint workshops, SUSTech undergraduate students taking courses at MIT Mechanical Engineering Department, SUSTech faculty development, and short courses. Every year, six SUSTech undergraduate students will take courses in the Mechanical Engineering Department at MIT for one semester to one academic year; meanwhile, six graduate students and postdoctoral researchers from SUSTech will join research projects in the Mechanical Engineering Department at MIT.

The collaboration will lend a hand to SUSTech to develop into a world-class research university. The collaboration will also help SUSTech impact the world. Through the collaboration, SUSTech hopes to foster world-class engineering talent to meet the needs for the city’s strategic development. The first phase of the collaboration is five years.

Before the signing ceremony, Guangdong Standing Committee member, the Shenzhen’s Party Chief Weizhong Wang, President Shiyi Chen and Vice President Chun Lu met MIT President Lafael Reif.

Earlier that day, the Shenzhen delegation visited MIT Center for Bits and Atoms.

A brief introduction about MIT:

Founded in 1861, MIT is a private research university. Along with Stanford and UC Berkley, MIT is one of the world’s leading research institutes in science and engineering. In 2018, MIT is ranked No.1 for Engineering by ARWU (Shanghai Ranking), and is ranked No.1 for 2018-2019 by QS, which rated MIT the world’s No.1 university for six consecutive years. In addition, MIT is ranked No.2 by the Times and the US News. The Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT has been continuously ranked No.1 in the US.