On June 18, 2017, the First Summit Forum for China Design Theory and National “Chinese Craftsman” Cultivation was held at the College of Design and Innovation, Tongji University. The forum, joined by 60 experts and scholars from 28 institutes nationwide, was organized and hosted by Professor ZOU Qichang of the College of Design and Innovation. ZOU is also an executive expert of major projects financed by the National Social Science Fund.

ZOU pointed out the forum aims at exploring the key agendas, such as China’s design theory and the cultivation of “Chinese craftsman” in response to the national “Quality Era” development plan in a bid to serve the needs of quality projects from the local levels to the state level and to deliver consulting reports for reference.

The forum was conducted in the form of a roundtable meeting, where representatives shared their new observations on China’s design theory and the cultivation of “Chinese craftsman,” and also discussed what had been done in this regard. There were 44 high-quality monographs that had been collected and made into conference proceedings with over 600,000 words.