Two years ago, Mr. Chirac, president of France laid the foundation to the building of Sino-French center in Tongji. On Oct. 28th, 2006 the well-regarded construction came to its completion and started its official service. On the afternoon Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, French culture minister, on behalf of President Chirac who was busy with visitation in China came all the way to Tongji to inaugurate the Sino-French center. Also, Ms Valérie Terranona Counselor to the President of France, Mr. Bernard Debre, Senator of French Parliament and consultant of Tongji University as well as Ms. Wu Qidi, Chinese vice minister of education, Mr. Wan Gang, president of Tongji and Zhou Jialun, head of School Affairs Committee of Tongji came to the inaugural ceremony.
Located in Tongji Siping campus, the Sino-French center covering an area of 13,575 m2with one floor under and five floors above the ground, mainly serves the use of joint education, scientific research and interflows of culture, art and technology between China and France. Meanwhile, with the successive influx of French middle-small enterprises soon the Sino-French center, associating research with production, will become a hatching base for the commercialization of innovative research fruits. The two ministers said in their speeches that they both believe the Sino-French center will surely become a great stage for Chinese and French youth to make extensive interflows in education, science and technology, economics, culture, art and many other areas.
The Sino-French building enjoys a distinctive design of outline —— one side of ferrugineous wall of weathering steel, another grey concrete-fibre structure, two contrast colors and materials integrated perfectly in the architecture. The special design of hand-shaking image manifests the theme of harmony in difference, indicating the harmonious co-existence and mutual influence of China and France, explained by the designer, Zhang Bin, architect of Tongji Academy of Architecture Designing.
The designing and construction of the building is base on the principle of economization. The weathering steel in use can provide much greater erosion-resistance ability than the ordinary steel. The proscenia-wall employs 4mm boards padded by zinced reinforcing steel bars with waterspouts in the gap between two boards and is hung over the keel of outside wall. The heat prevention layer of 30mm thermal blanket between the keel and protection wall structure provides adequate thermal resistance, in line with the Energy Standard for Common Buildings.
The Sino-French center is one of the fruits nurtured through the standing cooperation between Tongji and France, and it is also a catalyst for our further cooperation.” said Dong Qi, secretary to the president and head of Office of Foreign Affairs of Tongji. Now Tongji has developed a distinctive internationalized educational pattern with the focus on active partnership with key institutes in European countries. These years, Tongji has made many achievements in the joint programs with France, in addition to those with Germany. Tongji and many French high schools have signed 23 agreements on the university level and 10 on the college level (colleges of management). A good number of interflows and cooperations concerning joint education and scientific research programs have been carried out.
In November 1999, Tongji and Paris-Tech co-established the Sino-French College of Management Engineering. Over the next seven years to now, its double-master-degrees program has already covered eight professions, including intelligent traffic system, neo-IT, urban planning. And its Shanghai International MBA Program is gaining increasing reputation both home and aboard. Nearly 800 students have graduated, among whom many have become elites in management and engineering departments of famous companies or governments in China and France. Hence the success of this joint program is regarded as Model of Sino-French Educational Cooperation. Now the Sino-French Engineer Program, planned to begin recruitment in 2007 has become a new eye-catching program. Introducing French mode of engineer training, this plan aims at nurturing talents in civil engineering, communications engineering and environmental engineering. Graduates will be conferred with both Chinese and French diplomas. Besides, Tongji now has joined in the Chinese High Schools Union of Sino-French College of Doctorial Students. President Wan Gong of Tongji University now chairs the Union. This June, thirteen doctorial students from Tongji are some of the first to study in the College.
In terms of scientific researches, the State Key Laboratory of Marine Geology of Tongji has been working with five French research institutes on marine geology for long time. Now their research scope covers paleoceanography, sedimentary geochemical, marine micropaleontology and some other disciplines in this regard. Tongji and National Scientific Research Center of France have established Chongming Joint Laboratory of Ecology and Sustainable Development. The Micro-electronic Center of Tongji and French Atomic Energy Committee undertook the task of research and development of multi-processing chip. Also more cooperations of various forms and scales have been done in the medical sphere.
