On 11–12 November, the 24th Conference on International Exchange of Professionals, co-hosted by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs) and the Shanghai Municipal People's Government, was held at the Shanghai World Expo Center. During the Conference, with the strong support of the organizers, Guangdong University of Technology (hereinafter referred to as “GDUT”) hosted a talent exchange event themed " Energy and Environment Synergistic Development For a Sustainable Closed-Loop New Energy Economy", officially unveiled the Innovation and Intelligence Introduction Base for Intelligent Materials and Chemical Engineering (hereinafter referred to as “Innovation and Talent Introduction Base”), and signed a series of cross-border inter-university and university-industry cooperation agreements on site. Several international experts and scholars, including Nobel laureate Konstantin Novoselov, were appointed Distinguished Visiting Professors of GDUT.
Bai Jiangang, Secretary of the CPC GDUT Committee; Zhang Zhansheng, Deputy Director-General of the Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and Technology, Director-General of the Guangdong Provincial Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs; Konstantin Novoselov, Nobel Laureate in Physics, Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Foreign Director of the Konstantin Lab of GDUT and of the Innovation and Talent Introduction Base; Zhang Shanqing, Chinese Director of the Innovation and Talent Introduction Base, Professor of GDUT; and Solomon Magano, Vice-Chancellor of the University of South Africa, attended the event and delivered remarks. Also present were Qiu Xueqing, Deputy Secretary of the CPC GDUT Committee, President of GDUT; Bernard Meunier, Member of the French Academy of Sciences, Distinguished Professor of GDUT; and Becky Mamba, Member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. The opening ceremony was chaired by Du Chengming, Member of the Standing Committee of the CPC GDUT Committee, Vice-President of GDUT. Academicians and experts from France, Australia, South Africa, Singapore, Hong Kong and so on, together with business representatives and scholars from partner institutions, gathered at the event to chart a new blueprint for international scientific and technological cooperation.
Bai Jiangang pointed out that talent is an innovative force that crosses national borders, breaks down geographical and cultural barriers and connects global wisdom. He noted that GDUT's independent hosting of a thematic event at the Conference on International Exchange of Professionals — a national-level gathering of talent — not only signifies the full recognition of GDUT's talent work by the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs and Guangdong Province, but also offers a valuable opportunity to attract global talent and jointly build an innovation ecosystem. He stated that GDUT regards talent work as its "No. 1 Project", undertaking the "Year of Talent Development" campaign, and has established the Talent Development Strategy Research Institute of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. It is continuously improving the mechanisms for attracting, cultivating, retaining and utilizing talent, so as to contribute to the building of a talent highland in the Greater Bay Area. Rooted in the Greater Bay Area, GDUT is committed to the deep integration of science, industry and education, building laboratories on industrial chains and enabling talent to become "protagonists who are needed" in innovation-driven development. Looking out to the world, GDUT closely aligns with national strategic needs and translates its strengths in open education into an advantage in pooling top-tier talent and conducting collaborative research on key challenges. He added, GDUT is now anchored to the goal of building itself into a "Double First-Class" university and is accelerating its development into a high-level research university, creating a platform for talent to pursue careers and backing it up with well-developed mechanisms and support services. He sincerely invited experts from home and abroad to bring their projects and teams to GDUT and to build a talent highland and a better future together.
In his remarks at the exchange event, Qiu Xueqing reviewed GDUT’s journey in jointly building laboratories with experts from home and abroad, establishing the Innovation and Talent Introduction Base, and carrying out major international cooperation projects and thematic exchanges, and expressed heartfelt gratitude to the academicians and experts for their long-standing support of GDUT. He expressed the hope that this event would serve as a new starting point for continuously consolidating GDUT's international cooperation platforms, further broadening channels for cross-border scientific research exchange, pooling top intellectual resources from all sides to tackle key technological challenges, and harnessing global wisdom to serve national strategies and the overall development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
Zhang Zhansheng said, by hosting this event, GDUT has demonstrated its sense of responsibility in actively integrating into the province's overall talent development agenda and in serving the innovative development of the Greater Bay Area. The Provincial Department of Science and Technology attaches great importance to and strongly supports GDUT's introduction of foreign experts and the development of its talent introduction platforms, and the successful approval of the Innovation and Talent Introduction Base not only marks a major breakthrough for GDUT in building up its preeminent disciplines, but also represents a new step forward in pooling world-class intellectual resources and serving major national strategies. He stressed that Guangdong is taking the building of a high-level talent highland in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area as its overarching task and is thoroughly implementing the strategy of building a strong province through talent. He expressed the earnest hope that academicians and experts from home and abroad will engage deeply with Guangdong's industrial sector, keep more frontier technologies and innovative projects in Guangdong, and light up the Greater Bay Area's path of innovation with the light of talent and serve the country's high-quality development with the power of science and technology.
In his address, Novoselov said that science is a global endeavor that cannot succeed without close cross-border cooperation. Over the years of in-depth cooperation with GDUT, he said, the platforms and facilities have been continuously improved, the research teams have kept growing and high-level results have kept emerging, which has given him a real sense of GDUT's solid research atmosphere. Young talent, as an important bridge, has given strong impetus to the in-depth cooperation between the two sides. The unveiling of the Base this time has brought stronger national-level platform support and marks another milestone on the road of cooperation. He looked forward to the emergence of a batch of original results that originate from GDUT in the next three to five years with international influence, and said he was confident that more young scholars will move between Chinese and international academic networks and help translate scientific discoveries into applications.
Zhang Shanqing said that, as Chinese Director of the Innovation and Talent Introduction Base, he was delighted to witness with everyone the fruits GDUT has borne in international research cooperation and in talent cultivation and introduction. GDUT provides fertile ground for research and a superior innovation environment and acts as a solid backing that has helped the Innovation and Talent Introduction Base win approval and gradually turn the dream of internationalized research into reality. Over the next five years, he hopes to build the Innovation and Talent Introduction Base into a truly international highland: attracting and cultivating national-level high-caliber talent, producing top-tier original innovative results, opening up the entire chain from basic discovery to pilot-scale translation, pooling global wisdom, devoting itself to research on two-dimensional materials, taking root at GDUT and better serving China's green development cause.
Magano said that the University of South Africa, rooted in its home country and oriented to the world, has always held that a university is not only a site of knowledge production but also an important force for serving society and responding to real-world challenges. The University attaches great importance to cooperation with Chinese universities and industrial partners. GDUT has outstanding research strength, and the two sides share many common grounds and have great potential for cooperation. The signing of MOU this time has built a platform for long-term exchange and cooperation between the two universities, and he looked forward to taking this opportunity to deepen mutual learning, advance practical cooperation in research collaboration and talent cultivation, and jointly turn knowledge into concrete results that empower development and improve people's wellbeing.
At the event, Bai Jiangang, Zhang Zhansheng, Du Chengming, Novoselov, Magano, Zhao Huijun (Academician of both the Australian Academy of Science and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering), Zhang Shanqing, Daria Andreeva (Deputy Director of the Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials, National University of Singapore), Gu Weiping (Chairman of Greenrich (Pty) Ltd, South Africa), Zeng Qingming (Chairman of Guangdong Shuocheng Technology Co., Ltd.), Zeng Guoqiang (General Manager of Taineng Technology Co., Ltd.) and Hao Chunyan (Professor at GDUT) jointly unveiled the "Discipline Innovation and Talent Introduction Base for Intelligent Materials and Chemical Engineering".
Bai Jiangang, Qiu Xueqing and Du Chengming presented letters of appointment as Distinguished Visiting Professors to five overseas experts including Novoselov, engaging them to support GDUT's discipline development, scientific research and international talent cultivation.
Witnessed by Bai Jiangang, Novoselov, Zhang Zhansheng and Becky Mamba, GDUT signed a memorandum of understanding with the University of South Africa, a cooperation agreement with the National University of Singapore and Guangdong Shuocheng Technology Co., Ltd., and a cooperation agreement with the University of South Africa and Greenrich (Pty) Ltd of South Africa. The parties will expand practical cooperation in discipline development, research cooperation and joint talent cultivation, and carry out collaborative industry-academia-research innovation in fields such as new materials and new-energy recycling.
Roadshows were also held at the event for projects including the preparation of high-conductivity graphene PCB inks and the sustainable recycling of spent lithium-ion batteries. The head of GDUT's Human Resources Department gave a special presentation on talent policy, explaining its talent attraction and cultivation, platform support and supporting services, and giving the attending experts from home and abroad a comprehensive account of GDUT's policies, measures and development opportunities for recruiting global talent.
The event subsequently held thematic talent exchanges on frontier energy technologies, green chemical engineering and environmental protection. Participating experts and scholars focused on topics such as "smart materials and devices", "energy and environment", "smart materials and sustainable environment" and "green pharmaceuticals", held in-depth discussions on frontier hot topics including dynamic van der Waals heterostructures, nanochannel membranes, South African energy solutions and next-generation hydrogen and battery technologies and shared the latest progress in energy conversion and storage systems and the design of novel mass spectrometers. They also exchanged views on the research and development of new drugs for Wilson's disease and Alzheimer's disease as well as China-France and China-Australia international research collaboration. After the event, the participating experts and scholars visited relevant enterprises in Shanghai.
The event has built a high-level, internationalized platform for talent exchange and industry-academia-research collaboration. It is a vivid practice of GDUT's continued efforts to expand opening-up, pool global innovation resources and serve the building of a high-level talent highland in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Taking this event as a new starting point, GDUT will keep broadening the reach of international innovation cooperation and serve national strategies and the high-quality development of the Greater Bay Area through high-level international talent introduction and cross-border collaborative research on key challenges.
