The Alliance of Guangzhou International Sister-City Universities (GISU) Council Meeting 2020 was hosted on December 2. Eleven member institutions, the two proposed members and representatives from responsible governmental departments to include Foreign Affairs Office of Guangzhou Municipal Government and Guangzhou Association for Science & Technology attended the meeting online and offline.
During the meeting, Professor Wei Minghai, President of Guangzhou University (GU) gave a keynote speaking by recognizing the achievements GISU has secured and called for further collaboration between the members.
The Council voted for the approval of the two proposed new members namely the National Technical University of Ukraine and Durban University of Technology. The new GISU includes a total of 13 members. Participants also exchanged ideas about the plans of Digital Academy and GISU Entrepreneurship Capstone Courses and Certificate.
The city of Guangzhou has forged sister-city and friendly-city ties with 81 cities throughout the world. This international network in 2018 took a new and exciting step with the formation of the GISU Alliance which attracts and leverages the academic resources of its members in close coordination for the sustainable development of its cities. Benefits of this Alliance include providing think-tank support for the development of its sister-cities; building a multilateral platform for friendly exchanges and cooperation among scholars of its sister-city universities; providing college students with more opportunities for international understanding, learning and exchanges; and creating opportunities among sister-city universities which facilitate credit recognition and transfer, strengthening interdisciplinary curriculum exchanges and promote joint training efforts.
According to the statistics of Web of Science in the year of 2020, Guangzhou University faculty and counterparts of the staff had collaborated with their counterparts of their GISU member universities as the co-authors of 38 international journal articles.
Western Sydney University will host the next Council Meeting in 2021.
Chinese