On January 15th, Professor Andy Dougill, Vice-Principal and Dean of the Faculty of Sciences at the University of York, UK, led a delegation to visit SUES. President Lou Yongqi and Vice President Xia Chunming met with the delegation. Representatives from the International Office, School of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, and School of Management Studies attended the meeting.
In the VIP room of the Industry-Education Integration Building, Lou Yongqi held talks on cooperation with Professor Andy Dougill and his delegation. He introduced strategic space projects to the delegation, including the newly inaugurated Nlimited Tech Lab. He elaborated on SUES’ educational philosophy of “Engineering + Management + Design” 3-wings interdisciplinary integration and its goal of building a world-class application-oriented innovative university. He emphasized the SUES’ commitment to an industry-education integrated and practice-oriented talent cultivation model, highlighting the use of Shanghai’s urban spaces as a Real Campus to break down campus boundaries and promote deep integration between the university and local communities, as well as with enterprises. President Lou pointed out that he looked forward to both parties, building on existing exchanges, focusing on areas such as sustainable development and technological innovation, deepening research collaboration and joint talent cultivation, and achieving shared benefits through the sharing of high-quality educational resources.
Xia Chunming presided over the cooperation meeting. He stated that the University of York has distinctive features in engineering education, research innovation, and PBL teaching, which highly aligns with the SUES’ development philosophy. This meeting was a crucial step towards promoting substantive cooperation between the two universities. Both sides should leverage the upcoming dual-degree programs to continuously expand faculty and student exchanges, joint curriculum development, and research collaboration, thereby deepening the partnership.
Professor Andy Dougill expressed his gratitude for the warm reception. He highly commended SUES’ clear positioning as an application-oriented innovative institution and its outstanding achievements in industry-education integration. He also stated that the University of York places great importance on its partnership with SUES. He looked forward to using the signing of the agreement as a new starting point, fully leveraging the disciplinary strengths of both universities in fields such as engineering and management, to jointly advance high-quality international talent cultivation and cutting-edge research collaboration.
At the meeting, the two universities formally signed the Dual Degree Agreement to jointly launch a university-wide “3+1” undergraduate dual-degree program and a “3+M” integrated bachelor’s-master’s program. The signing of the agreement marks a new stage of institutionalized and substantive cooperation between the two universities. It provides an important channel for faculty and students to access the high-quality educational resources and academic platforms of a world-class university, strongly boosting SUES’ level of internationalization and the quality of its talent cultivation.
During the visit, the delegation toured relevant laboratories at School of Design (under preparation). They inspected the university’s teaching facilities and practical achievements in areas such as the integration of art and engineering, and innovative design, further deepening their understanding of the university’s distinctive characteristics and strengths.
