ZJU-UIUC Engineering Interdisciplinary Joint Research Symposium (the Symposium) was held successfully by means of online video connection from April 7 to April 9, 2020. The Symposium, which followed on from various cooperative research programs set up in 2019, aimed to promote more interdisciplinary research cooperation between the two universities and facilitate communications and interactions among faculty members. Going forward, its goals were to stimulate critical thinking and outcome sharing, and launch new research.
The Symposium was based on the three themes of ‘Engineering Sciences for Human Health’, ‘Engineering Sciences for Flexible Manufacturing’, and ‘Engineering Sciences for Energy, Environment, and Sustainable Development’, and integrated new insights and approaches into the practice of interdisciplinary integration. Each day focused on one theme. 28 faculty members from ZJU and ZJUI, and 55 from UIUC, made presentations relating to personal research areas, research outcomes, potential collaborative research programs, etc. More specifically, 11 ZJU faculty and 20 UIUC faculty presented at the session on Human Health, 6 ZJU faculty and 6 UIUC faculty presented at the session on Flexible Manufacturing, and 11 ZJU faculty together with 29 UIUC faculty presented at the session on Engineering Sciences for Energy, Environment, and Sustainable Development. An additional 67 faculty members from the two universities also participated.
After the Symposium, faculty members from ZJU and UIUC were encouraged to prepare white papers based on the above three research themes, to include: appropriateness of the research topic, a clear description of how participants would contribute to the collaborative project, an outline plan for exchange of personnel, and so on, with a submission date by the end of April. After review by the commission, the full proposals will be invited, with the final decision on the joint research programs made by the end of June.
In this period of historic opportunity, the research interaction between the two universities will surely provide the impetus for ZJU to make progress on the development of “New Engineering Projects” and the “Double First Class Initiative”.
Article: Caroline_C & Xinran Zhu
Translation: Xinran Zhu & Roda Morrison