The launch ceremony of the Sino-Australian Joint Center for Advanced Materials between Nanjing Tech University and Griffith University was held on September 20th. The ceremony was attended by Griffith delegation headed by Prof. Ian O'Connor,Vice Chancellor and President, NanjingTech President Huang Wei, and Vice President Gong Jianming.
President Huang Wei first extended his welcome to Prof. Ian O'Connor's visit at the beginning of the meeting. He said that Griffith University is an innovative and entrepreneurial top-ten Australian university which has been growing rapidly in recent years. This April,Prof. Ned Pankhurst,Senior Deputy Vice Chancellor and Senior Vice President of Griffith University visited NanjingTech and signed the agreement for establishing joint research center. After only 5 months,Vice Chancellor and PresidentIan O'Connorvisited NanjingTech again for the official launch of this joint center. This indicated the sincere willingness of cooperation and the efficient interaction between two universities. NanjingTech and Griffith are very complementary to each other in that NanjingTech has traditional strength in fields such as chemical engineering, bio-technology and materials sciences and Griffith has considerable expertise in fields like environmental sciences and information technology. President Huang pointed out that after 30 years' accumulation since China's Opening-up and Reform, the Chinese government attaches great importance to the promotion of China's overall scientific research and the investments in fundamental projects are on the rise year by year. NanjingTech is endeavoring to transform the resource advantage into talent advantage to achieve win-win with overseas partners.
Prof. Ian O'Connor first expressed his gratitude to NanjingTech reception in his speech and spoke highly of the beautiful scenery of Jiangpu campus. He said that Griffith University is a young and entrepreneurial university which attaches great importance to the collaboration with promising universities especially in Asia. Griffith University has enrolled a large number of Chinese students and is expanding and deepening collaboration with Chinese universities for joint research. Following up toProf. Ned Pankhurst's April visit, he would like to expedite the inter-university cooperation since the two universities are very complementary in research strength and the prospects for future cooperation are bright. He believes that the establishment of the joint center would further promote the collaboration between two universities in bio-medicine, energy and environmental sciences and materials sciences.
Delegates of the meeting also include Prof. Huijun Zhao, Director of Griffith Centre for Clean Environment and Energy, Mr.Mr Sherman Xia, Griffith Regional Director of Greater China anddirectors and deans of related offices and institutes of Nanjing Tech University.
