On April 29, a delegation of over ten professors and their young assistants of the Technical University of Berlin, led by the President, Prof. Steinbach, visited Tongji University and participated in the series of activities organized by our university for the "TUBerlin-Day". The Technical University of Berlin signed in 1995 the first cooperation agreement with Tongji University. It's one of the most important strategic cooperation partners of Tongji University.
The opening ceremony was held in the lobby of Zonghe Building. Over a hundred people of our university including Chairman of the University Council, Zhou Jialun, President Pei Gang, Vice President Dong Qi, Assistant President Wu Zhiqiang, professors and students of the colleges which have a strong cooperation relationship with TU Berlin (such as Sino-German College for Graduate Studies, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, College of Traffic and Transportation Engineering, College of Mechanical Engineering, College of Automotive Engineering, College of Economics and Management, German Faculty, International Language Training Centre, College of Environmental Science and Engineering) and representatives of our platform colleges (such as Sino-French Institute of Engineering and Management, Sino-Italian Campus, Sino-Finnish Centre) attended the ceremony. Wolfgang Roehr, Consul General of German Consulate General in Shanghai, was also present at the ceremony to express his congratulation.
At the beginning of the ceremony, President Pei Gang and President Steinbach made a speech respectively. They both emphasized the importance and necessity of further consolidating and promoting the strategic cooperation relationship between both sides, of establishing more double degree programs, of encouraging more students to take part in the exchange programs.
After the speeches, both presidents signed the "Double Doctoral Degree Program (in field of economics and management)", the "Agreement on the Continuation of the Academic Cooperation in Urban Design" as well as the "Letter of Intent about Cooperation in Mechanical Engineering" and awarded together the degree to the second batch of students of the Dual Master Program in Urban Design.
At the end of the ceremony, President Pei Gang and President Steinbach cut the ribbon for the exhibition of "Technical University of Berlin and its Cooperation with Tongji University". This exhibition, introducing systematically the cooperation and communication history of both universities since the 1980s, consisted of three parts: the first part was an introduction about TU Berlin including the basic statistic information and subjects’ overview; the second part showed the historic development of the cooperation between both universities which signed the first cooperation agreement in 1995 and then developed a series of cooperation projects in fields of Architecture & Urban Planning, Mechanical Engineering, Automotive Engineering, Transportation Engineering, Economics and Language Training in diverse forms and with fruitful achievements; the third part was about the Dual Master Program in Urban Design between the College of Architecture and Urban Planning and TU Berlin.
After the ceremony, President Steinbach made a presentation of TU Berlin to the Tongji students in the auditorium in order to encourage them to take up advanced studies at TU Berlin.
In the afternoon, the professors of both sides attended a round table meeting. They summarized the achievements in the past ten years and looked forward to the future, proposed some new cooperation concepts. Both sides came to an agreement to seek new cooperation opportunities in the doctoral level besides the existing programs in master level, and to explore a triadic model for the cooperation between Tongji University and "Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft".
On behalf of Tongji University, Council Chairman Zhou Jialun awarded the "Tongji Special Award for International Cooperation" to Prof. Trommsdorff, the Department Coordinator of the Sino-German College, Prof. Herrle, the German Coordinator of the Dual Master Program in Urban Design, and Ms. Skurski, the person in charge of China related issues of the International Office of TU Berlin, to thank them for their contribution to promoting the cooperation between both universities.
