On Aug 17th, the opening ceremony of “the Association of East Asian Research Universities (AEARU) Students Summer Camp 2015” was held in the School of Public Affairs of USTC. It is the first time for USTC to hold this event. This summer camp was co-organized by USTC Office of International Cooperation and the School of Public Affairs. CHEN Chusheng, Vice President of USTC; JIANG Jiajie, Vice Director of USTC Office of International Cooperation; Professor Kathryn Barker from Australia; Associate Professor Luca Cacciolatti from Westminster University, UK; all the participants of the camp; delegates of the School of Public Affairs and volunteers who are international students of the School of Public Affairs attended the ceremony, which was hosted by SONG Wei, Dean of the School of Public Affairs.
CHEN Chusheng, Vice President of USTC, presented a warm welcome on behalf of USTC. He pointed out the crucial role of international exchange and global vision in education and academic researches. He encouraged students to study from each other, to broaden vision, to deepen communication and to progress mutually through this kind of international platform. Thus they will regard this experience as a beautiful memory in the future.
From the perspective of higher education internationalization, Professor Barker and Associate Professor Cacciolatti both praised the significance of this camp in terms of students exchange and academic cooperation among East Asian research universities. They hope all the participants can benefit a lot from it, not only in their research fields, but also in studying culture diversification and building friendships.
QIU Lin, program coordinator of USTC Office of International Cooperation, introduced scholarship programs offered to international students, such as CAS-TWAS, CSC and USTC scholarship. USTC is always open for those who are active in further study.
The students of AEARU gave impressive presentations about the cities they are living, their universities, research area, personal introduction, etc. Their energy and passion received much applause from the audiences.
The theme and activities were co-decided by USTC Office of International Cooperation and the School of Public Affairs. “Innovation in Science and Technology: Engine for Development” is this year’s theme. It comes from the idea of innovation- driven development and is consisted with the state slogan of “mass entrepreneurship and innovation”. Activities included academic lectures, moving class to research institutes, factories and businesses, communities and villages. These activities intended to build a communication bridge among students from different background.
AEARU is an important regional universities association founded in January 1996, with the goals of forming a forum for the presidents of leading research-oriented universities in East Asia and of carrying out mutual exchanges between the major universities in the region. Since its foundation, a total of 17 universities from five regions have become members of the association, five regions are the Chinese Mainland, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The summer camp was held annually to deepen trust and mutual understanding among the member universities.
