Fan Cunli, Vice President of Shandong Jianzhu University
Honorable President Zhang Ailin, colleagues, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon!
It is a great honor to be entrusted by Professor Jin Fengxiang, the president of Shandong Jianzhu University, to attend the founding meeting of the Belt and Road Architectural University International Consortium initiated and hosted by Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture. After listening to the wonderful speeches made by the presidents of many well-known colleges and universities in architecture at home and abroad, I am very enlightened. Next, I would like to report on some of the basic information of our school.
Shandong Jianzhu University is located in Jinan City, Shandong Province. Shandong Province is known as Qilu Land, the hometown of Confucius and Mencius, which mainly refers to Confucius, the saint in Qufu, Shandong Province, Mencius, the sub-saint in Zoucheng, Shandong Province. Shandong also has Mount Tai, the head of five mountains. And the Yellow River also crosses Shandong Province. Jinan City is known as Dog City, with 72 world top dogs there. Jinan also has a famous Song Dynasty poet Li Qingzhao. Shandong Jianzhu University, founded in 1956, after more than 60 years of development, it has formed a multi-disciplinary university characterized by civil architecture, with engineering as the main subject and interdisciplinary infiltration of engineering, science, management, culture, law, agriculture and arts. We now have 57 undergraduate majors and 60 master degree programs in two disciplines. At present, there are 26,000 students in school, and the annual employment rate of graduates has been in the top three in Shandong Province.
Our school has always attached great importance to the internationalization of running schools. It should be said that internationalization is an important feature of the development of universities in the world today, which exists in different types of universities at different levels, different sizes, different regions and different purposes. Belt and Road Initiative provided opportunities and possibilities for the high-level development of universities in the new century. The establishment of the Belt and Road Architectural University International Consortium, starting from the aspects of school-running system, personnel training, curriculum projects, credit certification, scientific research and so on, and carrying out extensive and comprehensive cooperation with open universities in countries along the Belt and Road Initiative, will certainly promote the internationalization of architectural universities in China. At present, our school has focused on six aspects in promoting internationalized running of schools around the belt and road initiative. First, promote the exchange of high-level visits among countries along Belt and Road Initiative's route. Since last year, our school has sent inter-school visiting groups to African countries and Southeast Asian countries, and received high-level delegations from Africa, Europe, and so on. It has deepened the inter-school relationship with colleges and universities in Russia and other countries.
The second is to increase the enrollment of foreign students from countries along Belt and Road Initiative's route, set up Chinese classes for civil engineering majors and enroll more than 60 foreign students from countries and regions along Belt and Road Initiative, such as Africa and South Asia. Third, hold high-end academic conferences focusing on the belt and road initiative. Our school hosted the Asia Sustainable Green Campus Forum in 2016. The 10th International Conference on Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning will be held in the second half of this year.
The fourth is to expand the field of Sino-foreign cooperation in running schools. Currently, there are undergraduate professional cooperation programs in the United States, Britain, Australia, Singapore and other countries, as well as credit mutual recognition programs in many foreign universities.
The fifth is to deepen scientific research cooperation with countries along Belt and Road Initiative. At present, our school has carried out in-depth cooperation with Germany, Britain, Japan, South Korea and other countries in the fields of green building, construction industrialization and so on.
The sixth is to take the initiative to meet the demand for talents in the belt and road initiative, to undertake training courses on construction senior management projects in Algeria and other countries, and to customize training courses for overseas engineers from China Construction, China Railway, China Communications and large state-owned enterprises.
Second, it is with regard to expanding and strengthening architectural characteristics. The construction industry is the pillar industry of national economic and social development, which plays an important role in promoting industrial transformation and upgrading and deepening supply-side reform. Therefore, the related major of architecture, in the future for a long time of economic and social development and even the overall situation of the social world economy, will still be a lot of space and platform for development. However, there is no denying the fact that the higher the level of economic development, the lower the proportion of infrastructure construction industry, and the higher the proportion of creative design, operation and maintenance technology upgrading and comprehensive application of buildings. In recent years, on the basis of consolidating the advantages of traditional civil engineering, our school has focused on the development of green buildings. The only national green building technology and its theoretical Ph.D. training program is located in our school.
To speed up the transformation of architectural heritage, smart city and other researches, the Shandong Province Green and Low Carbon Building Research Institute has been established, presiding over the Ministry of National Housing and Construction, the Energy Department Construction Project, passive, assembled ultra-low energy consumption experimental building. At present, this experimental building has been put into operation and recently commissioned by the Ministry of Housing and Construction. Training courses in this area have just been held throughout the country. Our goal is to build a green building technology research and development achievement conversion and engineering demonstration center based in east China and radiating across the country.
In addition, in the field of building reinforcement and reconstruction, our school has also won the National Technological Invention Award, the Ministry of Education’s Innovation Team, Shandong Taishan Scholars and other important achievements. Our achievement is mainly on building displacement. At present, in the aspect of building displacement, we are going to gradually extend it to become bigger and stronger.
Here we sincerely invite the national architectural universities along the Belt and Road Initiative route to jointly carry out scientific research cooperation in related fields.
Third, it is with regard to the development of service areas.
Joseph Chamberlain, the first president of the University of Birmingham in England, said that the knowledge learned for him is nothing more than elegant knowledge, learning for the benefit of the people is elegant patriotism. Under the background of double first-class construction, our architectural colleges and universities should be strategically clear. We should not only take the initiative to participate in the opening up of Belt and Road Initiative to run schools, but also take root in the land of China, and take root in the regional economy. In serving the local economic and social development, we should seek knowledge for development. In recent years, the school has carried out in depth. Shandong Jianzhu University has served Shandong's construction plan and actively built a strong technology research and development platform. In 2016, the school's Green Building and Building Industrialization Innovation Practice Center was approved as a national-level integration project of industry and education, becoming the first university in Shandong Province to be approved for this project. Our school, in conjunction with Shandong Normal University, Jinan University and other universities, has jointly planned the construction of the Qilu University Science and Technology Park, established the Green Building Innovation Research Institute in Qingdao Blue Silicon Valley and the Robot Research Institute in Yantai City. It has successively signed strategic agreements with more than 40 government enterprises and institutions, completed more than 300 technological transformation and achievements promotion, and played an active role in the new urbanization construction, construction industrialization, green city, ancient architecture protection and other fields.
The school is full of civil engineering talents. Eight of them are the presidents or directors of Shandong Civil Architecture Association's Urban Management Association, Green Architecture Association, Garden Association, Real Estate Association, etc. They have led the drafting of policy documents such as Shandong Industrial Architecture Guidelines, organized or participated in the formulation of more than 40 national and provincial related industry standards, and played an important think tank role for the development of the construction industry.
Colleagues, Belt and Road Initiative has brought new opportunities to the innovation and development of the university. The establishment of the Belt and Road Architectural University International Consortium has set up a broad platform for the school to carry out international exchanges and cooperation. Shandong Jianzhu University will take Belt and Road Initiative as the link, looking forward to working with domestic and foreign architecture universities to strengthen connectivity, deepen friendly exchanges, and carry out extensive cooperation to contribute to the economic development of countries and regions along the line. Welcome to Shandong Jianzhu University to guide the work. Thank you!
(Compiled according to the shorthand record at the conference)
