ZJU President leads delegation to Europe

Prof. WU Zhaohui, president of Zhejiang University, led a delegation to Europe this week as part of the university’s efforts to strengthen its connections in the region.

The university has strong ties with international organizations and further extension on cooperation is one of the important actions of its global strategy – GLOBAL ZJU: CREATE to impact. During this trip,ZJU delegation visited the World Economic Forum (WEF), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), U.N. Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and Wageningen University & Research.

In Geneva, Prof. WU met with Prof. Klaus Schwab, founder and executive Chairman of the Forum.“World-class universities should take more responsibilities. World Economic Forum offers universities a high-end platform to build a collaborative and open innovation ecosystem and contribute more to major challenges faced by mankind,”President Wu said. Prof. Schwab highly recognized the research and innovation capabilities of ZJU and formally invited ZJU to join the Global University Presidents Forum (GULF), which is founded in 2006 and aims to promote cooperation among the world's top universities. Currently, there are 28 universities in GULF, including Harvard University, the University of Cambridge, ETH Zurich, Tsinghua University and Peking University.

At ITU headquarters, the delegation was welcomed by the Secretary-General of the Alliance, Mr. ZHAO Houlin and a memorandum of understanding on cooperation was signed to extend research collaboration in new media, smart cities, cyber security, and the Internet of Things. In addition, a preliminary consensus was reached on the development of student internship projects and the construction of online courses.

In the third stop, president WU visited UNITAR and met with H.E. Mr. Nikhil Seth, assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and executive Director of UNITAR. A memorandum of understanding was signed to promote institutional cooperation between the two sides in student internships, high-level training and online courses.

During the stay in the Netherlands, the delegation visited Wageningen University & Research and met with Mr. Rens Buchwaldt, board member of the University, Professor Raoul Bino, Director of the Department of Agricultural Technology and Food Sciences, and Professor Robert van Gorcom, Director of the Institute of Food Safety. The two sides discussed about in-depth collaboration in agriculture, food and other fields.

This is WU’ third trip to Europe as president since 2015.

As part of his ongoing efforts to expand ZJU’s global impact, the trip builds on recent success on the establishment of a global partnership network, which now includes more than 190 institutions across 6 continents.