On September 28, the 4th G60 Yangtze River Delta Sci-Tech Innovation Valley Talent Summit was successfully concluded in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. The Summit is a landmark and an influential talent exchange activity in the Yangtze River Delta. Leaders from nine cities in the Yangtze River Delta region gathered together to discuss the opportunities and challenges of the development of industry-education integration in the era of digital economy, and to promote the establishment of a deeper mechanism for universities’ research and knowledge exchange with industry in this region.
Professor Tao Wu, Vice Provost of University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) and Dean of Faculty of Science and Engineering (FoSE), was invited to attend this summit as the representative of university presidents, and he shared the achievements and experiences of Sino-foreign universities in creating high-level talent gathering platforms and cultivating international talents in the areas of industry-education integration, taking UNNC as an example.
Professor Wu mentioned at the summit: "As the first Sino-foreign university, UNNC successfully introduced the teaching quality assurance system of the University of Nottingham (UoN) 18 years ago and formed the international characteristics of high-quality talent cultivation. Now, for the second time, we have introduced the quality research resources of UoN and founded the China Beacons Institute. UNNC will make full use of its international advantages to fully unlock the potential of the researchers and through the introduction of international academic teams, the import of international scientific and creative resources, and the international management model, contribute for the scientific research."
Since the FoSE was established, we have long insisted on creating a new mode of cultivating international science and engineering talents in keeping with the times, and building an integrated education system. We insist on problem-solving orientation, encourage students to participate in a variety of on and off-campus internships, focus on cultivation of students' transferable skills, and comprehensively improve students' core competitiveness in further education and employment.
Since September 2016, Professor Wu has been the Dean of FoSE. With his leadership, the Faculty has achieved excellence in teaching and talent cultivation, research and knowledge exchange, and introducing high-level talents to Ningbo.
The FoSE has been adhering to the concept of "global base and local service", aiming to strengthen scientific research cooperation with the local community by gathering international scientific and innovative technological resources, conducting high-level research on new cutting-edge and applied technologies, and providing talent and scientific support for the development of Ningbo's "246" industrial clusters.
The Faculty has built two provincial laboratories and one provincial engineering centre. The Faculty has 12 interdisciplinary research teams, which have certain characteristics and achievements in six research fields: advanced materials, energy technology, power electronics, digital healthcare, advanced manufacturing, and artificial intelligence.
"In the area of aviation electrical and composite materials, long-term and stable school-enterprise cooperation has been established with Commercial Aircraft and AVIC Composite Materials. In digital health and medical imaging, the school has participated in the development of a liquid helium-free low-temperature superconducting magnetic resonance imaging system that has been successfully registered as a national innovative medical device, becoming the first approved national level three innovative medical product in the history of Ningbo, and the first original in the world. In terms of energy technology, we have helped Zhejiang enterprises solve the problem of bottlenecks in new reactors and efficient separation technology of chemical products and built joint research centres with China's top 500 enterprises to carry out collaborative research on clean energy and high-end dye chemical technology. In high-end manufacturing, the innovative small CNC machine tools of the Advanced Manufacturing Key Laboratory have achieved stable industrialized mass production sales." Prof. Wu mentioned.
The UNNC FoSE has been committed to cultivating more talent in the Faculty and providing more strategic, comprehensive and professional intelligence support to attract high-level talent serving the development of Ningbo and China, as well as the world.
Professor Wu said, "In the future, UNNC will continue to integrate international science and innovative educational resources, deeply cooperate with local industries, play the important role of an international platform for international talent import and contribute to the development of Ningbo, Yangtze River Delta and even the whole country with international higher education strength."