On the afternoon of October 15, Zhuang Yuequn, Secretary of the CPC Shantou Municipal Committee, visited Guangdong Technion - Israel Institute of Technology (GTIIT) and attended a symposium. He stressed the need to deepen university-city collaboration and industry-education integration, advance the coordinated development of education, science and technology, and talent, and provide intellectual and talent support for Shantou's modernization. Prof. Mao Junfa, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chancellor of GTIIT, chaired the symposium.

GTIIT is China's only Sino-foreign cooperative university focused on science and engineering. Zhuang Yuequn toured the campus and was briefed on the university's overall development. He also visited the Flow Imaging and Diagnostics Lab and the Sludge Treatment and Valorization Lab, where he interacted with researchers and learned about their research. He noted that basic research underpins the entire scientific system. He hoped GTIIT would achieve original breakthroughs in new materials, new energy, and environmental governance, leverage Shantou's solid industrial base and rich application scenarios, and translate more high-level research into real-world outcomes, turning the university's intellectual and talent strengths into growth drivers for Shantou.

At the symposium, Zhuang Yuequn fully affirmed GTIIT's solid achievements in talent cultivation, research innovation, and local service in recent years. He encouraged the university to uphold Party leadership and the right direction in education, remain people-centered in talent cultivation, deepen the integration of research and teaching, and leverage its Sino-foreign cooperative advantage to nurture more innovative talent with a global perspective and a sense of national commitment.

Zhuang Yuequn emphasized that universities thrive alongside cities, and cities prosper from universities. 

He called for bolstering distinctive, competitive disciplines in alignment with national and provincial strategies as well as Shantou's development needs, boosting GTIIT's capacity to undertake major sci-tech projects and pursue cutting-edge interdisciplinary research, and building it into a key gateway for Shantou to link up with global innovation resources and a strategic pillar for the city's future growth. 

He urged intensified efforts in core technology research, focusing on bottleneck technologies through organized research to produce more original, landmark, and pioneering breakthroughs "from 0 to 1". He also called for planning and building a university science park, continuing to host the Nan'ao Science Conference, and partnering with Shantou University and the Guangdong Provincial Laboratory of Chemistry and Fine Chemicals, to establish a regional technology transfer center, striving to create a science and technology innovation hub that drives Shantou's high-quality development. 

He stressed the need to precisely empower industrial development by connecting the education, talent, innovation, and industry chains; supporting the intelligent transformation and digital upgrading of traditional industries such as textiles and garments and toy creativity; fostering emerging industries like offshore wind power; and making forward-looking arrangements in future industries such as quantum technology and artificial intelligence, to provide strong technological support for Shantou to cultivate new quality productive forces and develop advanced manufacturing. 

The Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government will continue to support the university's development, improve supporting services, and deliver tangible benefits for faculty, striving to foster an atmosphere that respects knowledge, talent, and creativity, and working with the university to build a benchmark for Sino-foreign cooperative education.

On behalf of GTIIT, Prof. Mao Junfa thanked the Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government for their long-standing support. He said the university will take root in Shantou, maintain its internationalized approach, serve as a bridge to global resources, strive to build a high-level research university, cultivate more interdisciplinary innovative talent, and promote the translation and application of more research outcomes in Shantou, contributing more to the city's push to build the special economic zone in the new era.

Municipal leader Peng Cong'en, as well as university leaders Dr. Queena Yi and Prof. Gao Jian attended the event.

Text/Photos: Shantou Media Group, GTIIT News & Public Affairs