From October 9thto 11th, Tongji Forum sponsored by Tongji University and Tongji Alumni Association in Germany was held in Berlin. This forum was one program ofSino-German Scientific Year, which was jointly held by German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and Chinese Ministry of Education and patronized by BMBF. This forum’s central theme was tolook back history, face the current situations and look forward into the future, that is, to review Tongji’s scientific and educational cooperation with Germany in the past 30 years, analyze the current situations and discuss sustainability and prospect of future cooperation.
Prof. Schavan, Minister of BMBF, German Federal Government and Prof. Wan Gang, Minister of Science and Technology sent congratulatory letters.
On the opening ceremony held on October 10th, the University President Pei Gang expressed warm welcome to the guests. Department Chief Greisler of BMBF, Dr. Bode, Secretary-General of DAAD, Dr. Janetzke, Deputy Secretary-General of Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Dr. Kruessmann, Director of DFG East Asian, Jiang Feng, Minister-Counselor of Education Department, Chinese Embassy in Germany made greeting speech. They expressed congratulations to Tongji’s achievements in cooperation with Germany in the past 30 years, and highly appreciated the part Tongji had played in promoting Sino-German cooperation. In Pei Gang’s theme speech later, he elaborated Tongji’s strategy of international cooperation and emphasized Tongji would continue developing more cooperation and exchange with German side. The University would attract more German students to study in Tongji through strategic cooperation with German universities and would provide new schemes to reform the engineers educational mode through developing dual-degree programs. Then, Wu Qidi, member of NPC Standing Committee and former Minister of Education and President of Ruhr University Bochum made a review of Tongji’s cooperation with Germany in the past 30 years. The two sides’ Coordinators of Tongji Sino-German College, German Engineering College and College of Vocational Education analyzed their programs. Representatives of Tongji Automotive College, College of Creative Technology, Oceanography College, Mechanical College and Telecommunications College introduced their cooperative programs with German side to the guests. Besides, Tongji students who had won Humboldt scholarships and DAAD scholarships participated in the forum.
It was learned that more than 200 representatives from German universities, business circles, political circles, Colleges of Tongji University and members of Tongji Alumni Association in Germany attended the forum.
