On December 8, Hohai University spearheaded the release of the Declaration on Green and Low-carbon Development among Universities of Jiangsu – Canada to empower the green development of China and Canada and jointly build a low-carbon future for the world and held the 2022 Annual Meeting of Jiangsu-Canada University Consortium cum Jiangsu-Canada Universities Green and Low-carbon Development Forum. Xu Weiya, Vice President of Hohai University, and Shi Yunyu, Director of the Office of International Cooperation and Exchange of Jiangsu Education Department, attended the meeting and delivered speeches.
The Declaration was released at the 2nd Jiangsu-Canada Green and Low-carbon Development Conference, which was attended by the Canadian Consulate General in Shanghai, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of the People's Republic of China, the Foreign Affairs Office of the People's Government of Jiangsu Province, Jiangsu Education Department and the Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of Jiangsu Province. The Declaration, jointly proposed by 41 universities in Jiangsu Province and Canada, calls on universities in Jiangsu and Canada to deepen partnership, jointly carry out international cooperation in scientific and technological innovation, achievement commercialization, and talent training, promote the spread of green and low-carbon culture and build a new green and low-carbon science and education cooperation system with win-win situations.
Vice President Xu noted that with the development and opening up of education, China and Canada have embraced closer educational cooperation and people-to-people exchanges. Over the past two years, universities in Jiangsu have carried out fruitful exchanges and cooperation with those in Canada through the platform of Jiangsu-Canadian University Consortium. In the future, we hope that we could give full play to our respective advantages, deepen practical cooperation with Canada, and create a new situation of educational exchanges and cooperation between Jiangsu and Canada.
Director Shi said that Jiangsu Province has always attached importance to cooperation and exchanges with Canada, and has established friendly relationships with Ontario. The two sides have also achieved rich cooperation results through specific measures such as the Ontario-Jiangsu Student Exchange Program. We hope that all colleges and universities can create a characteristic cooperation brand of the Jiangsu-Canadian University Consortium, and promote the opening-up of higher education in Jiangsu Province as a whole.
The meeting also introduced the annual work summary and next-step work plan of the member universities and adopted the chapter of the Consortium. During the meeting, Soochow University, Nanjing Agricultural University, China University of Mining and Technology, Nanjing Normal University, and the Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine shared their excellent cases and successful experiences in cooperation with Canada.
Established in 2020, the Jiangsu-Canada University Consortium is one of the platforms initiated by the Jiangsu Education Department for exchanges of both Chinese and foreign universities. The Consortium has six academic committees, namely, the Civil & Hydraulic Engineering Sub-committee, the Materials & Advanced Manufacturing Sub-committee, the Environment & New Energy Sub-committee, the Humanity & Art Sub-committee, the Medical & Life Sciences Sub-committee, and the Green Development of Agriculture Sub-committee. It aims to build an exchange and cooperation platform for high-level universities in Jiangsu Province and Canada, and establish a cooperation mechanism for resource sharing between universities of both sides, to systematically promote cooperation and exchanges in the fields of talent training, discipline development, and the integration of industry, university and research, and enhance the academic competitiveness and international influence of higher education of both sides.
