On April 30, the 2024 HUST-UNSW Partnership Day was held at HUST. President You Zheng and Vice President Zhan Yiqing met with a delegation of nine from the University of New South Wales (UNSW), including Attila Brungs, Vice-Chancellor and President, Colin Grant, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Global, and Lisa Zamberlan, Pro Vice-Chancellor International. The event featured a plenary meeting and signing ceremony, a presidential talk, 6 working group meetings, lab tour and campus visit, aiming to strengthen friendship, deepen cooperation, and outline future collaborations between the two sides.

In the morning, the Signing Ceremony of the MoU on UNSW-HUST Joint Center took place at the Wutongyu Academic Exchange Center.

President You Zheng extended a warm welcome to the visiting delegation. He stated that the two universities have engaged in fruitful cooperation in recent years, sharing the same visions and expectations about advancing joint education, strengthening collaborative research, and encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship in the field of One Health and Sustainable Development. President You expressed hope that the signing of the MoU would serve as an opportunity for both parties to leverage the upcoming International Education and Scientific Innovation Campus (Junshan Campus of HUST), and jointly advance the establishment of the Joint Center and relevant flagship partnership brands. This, he emphasized, would contribute significantly to the development of both two countries, as well as to global human society.

Attila Brungs expressed heartfelt gratitude for the thoughtful arrangements and warm reception by HUST. He mentioned that in October 2023, President You Zheng led a delegation to visit UNSW, during which both sides reached a consensus on establishing the UNSW-HUST Joint Center. Over the past six months, various collaborative initiatives have progressed steadily. HUST is a world-class institution with leading strengths in medical-engineering interdisciplinary research and technology transfer, sharing similar strengths and the same goals with UNSW. As UNSW celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, he hoped that the two universities would continue to forge a strong alliance and deepen cooperation in broader fields in the next 75 years to come.

In the strategic dialogue, Zhan Yiqing expressed that HUST will exert all its creation for the successful implementation of the JEI/JEP in due course. She believed that the HUST-UNSW joint center will serve as a excellent platform for talent training, innovation, entrepreneurship and technology transfer, centered around significant themes of health innovation and sustainable development. Colin Grant stated that through mutual visits between senior leadership and over 15 online meetings, the two universities have forged a deep mutual trust and friendship. He hoped that both sides would continue to deepen the intensity, depth, and breadth of cooperation, further work closely together, and jointly create a bright future.

Signing of MoU on UNSW-HUST Joint Center

Signing of Research Seed Fund Application Call

You Zheng and Attila Brungs jointly signed the MoU on UNSW-HUST Joint Center. Liao Xiaofei, Director of HUST’s Research Development Office, and Vinayak Dixit, Director of Transnational Ventures at UNSW, jointly signed the Research Seed Fund Application Call.

At the Presidential Talk, Attila Brungs delivered a keynote speech titled Big Data Driving Value in Health, where he introduced the practices and insights of UNSW Centre for Big Data Research in Health in driving smart healthcare through data mining, analysis, and application. HUST students actively engaged in the Q&A session and discussions.

The delegation also visited the Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, the International Education and Scientific Innovation Campus (Junshan Campus of HUST), the Junshan Branch of Tongji Hospital affiliated with HUST, and the Intelligent Connected and Electric Vehicle Industrial Park in the Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone. They were received by Liu Ziqing, member of the Standing Committee of the Wuhan Municipal Party Committee, Secretary of the Working Committee of the Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone, and Secretary of the Wuhan Hannan District Committee, as well as Tang Chao, Director of the Administrative Committee of the Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone.

Six working group meetings were held concurrently, focusing on topics such as health information system and data science, biomedical materials, health and software engineering, finance, and English for academic purposes, facilitating in-depth discussions between the two sides.

The heads of HUST’s Office of International Affairs, Research Development Office, Finance Department, School of Materials Science and Engineering, School of Computer Science and Technology, School of Software Engineering, School of Medicine and Health Management, School of Optical and Electronic Information, School of Foreign Languages, College of Life Science and Technology, and the affiliated Tongji Hospital attended the event.

The University of New South Wales Sydney (UNSW), founded in 1949, is a world-renowned public research university, a member of the Group of Eight (Go8) in Australia and the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU).

Written and Edited by: Chang Wen, Peng Yumeng