The inauguration ceremony of Tongji European Culture Research Institute (ECRI) was held in the Sino-French center on Dec.1st. The President Pei Gang, Mr. Rupprecht Mayer, the German general consul in Shanghai, and Cécile Clomier, the education consul of French consulate general in Shanghai addressed at the ceremony and together unveiled the Research Institute.
It’s introduced that our university’s College of Humanities includes Germany Philosophy and Culture Research Institute, France Thought & Culture Research Institute, World Literature and Comparative Culture Research Institute and so on, which has formed the feature of different European countries’ culture study.
Based on this fact, European Culture Research Institute, together with the inner relevant academic organizations such as Federation Germany Research Institute, Germany Learning Centre , School of Foreign Languages and so on will prepare to establish the Europe History and European Union Research Institute so as to develop various researches on the aspects of the European philosophy , European literature , European art , European history , European Union and Mitteleuropa relation, etc. as well as to construct a platform for the Mitteleuropa cultural exchange. Besides, the establishment of ECRI can further make Tongji humanities’ feature “Europe - European Union “prominent and push the institute to become an institute with international influence.
Prof. Cheng Baoyi, France academician of Science Academy and our university honorary professor, and Herman Sheer, president of the Germany Solar Energy Institute, were invited to be honorary presidents of the Institute.
In addition, the Research Institute was introduced to intend to unite the colleges and universities in German and France next May to hold a international Symposium on the theme of "symbols and society" to commemorate French structuralism master Levy - Strauss and thinker Mello Ponty’s 100th birthday.
