On the morning of October 11th, SUES and People's Government of Jing'an District signed a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement at the district government building. This signing is an important initiative for SUES in implementing its Emphasis on Service, Strengthening Contribution strategy and building the Three Synergies Version 2.0. It holds significant strategic importance for accelerating the SUES’ development into a world-class application-innovation-oriented university with distinct industrial characteristics. Attending the signing ceremony were Secretary of the CPC SUES Committee Li Jiang, President Lou Yongqi, Vice Presidents Xia Chunming and Xu Kaiyu; Secretary of the CPC Jing'an District Committee Zhong Xiaoyong, District Chief Zhai Lei, and Deputy District Chiefs Mei Guangqing and Hu Yong. The ceremony was presided over by Deputy District Chief Hu Yong.
In his speech, Li Jiang reviewed SUES’ tradition over the past 40-plus years of integrating industry and education and serving industrial needs, and expressed gratitude for Jing'an District's long-standing support for the university's development. Looking ahead to future cooperation, Li Jiang proposed three visions: First, to elevate perspectives and pool efforts to plan a blueprint for cooperation, fully utilizing district and university resources to transform them into winning advantages for mutual development. Second, to seize development opportunities and focus on refining strategic measures for district-university cooperation, leveraging Jing'an's internationalization strengths and SUES' interdisciplinary innovation characteristics in Engineering + Management + Design to jointly develop key projects such as the School of New Fashion (tentative). Third, to deepen the substance of cooperation and jointly create a synergistic model for district-university collaboration, transforming the cooperation roadmap into a tangible picture of high-quality development through mechanisms like talent co-cultivation.
When introducing the vision for district-university joint development, Lou Yongqi pointed out: Both parties will, through innovation in the city-university cooperation model, fully utilize Jing'an's internationalized and high-end resource endowments and leverage SUES' advantage of the golden 3-wings drive of Engineering + Management + Design for interdisciplinary innovation. They will jointly create a future-oriented international fashion culture and industry source engine characterized by Global Leadership, City-University Synergy. Through the integrated innovation of top fashion resources + cutting-edge technology and art + engineering management transformation, the parties will connect world-class resources in fashion, culture, technology, ecology, and design. They will co-establish a new platform school integrating interdisciplinary studies and industry-education integration—School of New Fashion (tentative), a New Fashion Mass Innovation Center, and the Suhewan Trend Block. This will further link with the West Nanjing Road commercial district to build a world-class fashion culture and trend ecosystem, creating a new name card for Shanghai's fashion culture.
Zhong Xiaoyong, on behalf of the CPC Jing'an District Committee and District Government, extended warm congratulations on the signing of the agreement. He noted that as one of the first pilot universities of Ministry of Education's Excellent Engineer Education and Training Plan and the lead unit for the construction of new engineering disciplines among local universities nationwide, SUES' strengths in specialized disciplines align highly with Jing'an's industries, providing significant impetus for industrial technological innovation and transformation/upgrading. As a landmark district of Shanghai, Jing'an is anchoring itself in data intelligence and cultural creative industries, accelerating the cultivation of new quality productive forces. The strategic needs of both sides are highly aligned, and the cooperation prospects are promising. To deepen and substantiate the cooperation, he proposed three initiatives: First, focus on fashion consumption, striving to create a globally influential benchmark in fashion consumption. Second, focus on cultural creativity, building an influential cultural and creative industry cluster. Third, focus on integrated innovation, adhering to the integrated development of fashion consumption, cultural creativity, and technological innovation to better empower the fashion industry.
In his address, Zhai Lei stated that Jing'an and SUES share a high degree of strategic alignment and a solid foundation for collaboration. He expressed hope that both sides would take this signing as a new starting point to establish a closer cooperative relationship, focus on the key projects identified in the agreement, fully leverage their respective characteristic advantages, continuously promote district-university collaborative innovation, and jointly contribute to Shanghai's construction of the Five Centers. Jing'an will proactively strengthen work coordination, sincerely provide service guarantees, create favorable conditions for the implementation of the cooperation agreement, and better promote value co-creation, strategic mutual advancement, and win-win development.
At the meeting, witnessed by the principal leaders of both parties, Xia Chunming and Mei Guangqing signed the agreement on behalf of their respective sides.
In the future, through deepened cooperation with Jing'an District, SUES will focus on sustainable fashion prototype innovation and the incubation of innovative application outcomes in the AI era. It aims to cultivate versatile talents integrating fashion creativity, technological innovation, and cultural creative management, achieving the organic integration of top fashion resources, cutting-edge technology and art, and engineering and brand management transformation. Together, they will create a world benchmark for a district-university collaborative innovation consortium characterized by City-University Synergy, Value Co-creation.