Invited by the Times Higher Education and the BRICs & Emerging Economies Universities Summit, academician Li Xiaohong, the President of WHU, attended the Summit in Moscow from December 3rd to 4th and gave a speech. He is also the only Chinese university president attending the summit.
President Li delivered a speech in English named‘Pursuit of Excellence Wuhan University’s Experience in Its Effort to Build a World Class University’, in which he first stressed the importance of higher education by pointing out the relationship between the rapid development in world’s economy and the opportunity to invest in higher education. Then, through in-depth data analysis and vivid graphs, President Li impressed the audience with the achievements of the world class projects in Chinese higher education in the recent 20 years, such as the well-known 211 and 985 projects. He also showed the measures taken and outcomes achieved in building WHU into a world class university. At the end of his speech, Li suggested that BRICs universities pay more attention to the cultural heritage and allow the innovation emerging from the ethnic culture, and support the contribution to regional economy and establish a cooperative platform. This report aroused great interest among university presidents from numerous countries.
At the opening reception on the night of Dec 3rd, the Times Higher Education organization issued the BRICs & Emerging Economies Universities Ranking (2015), among which WHU ranks the 26th, moving up 14 places in comparison to the previous year. The Chinese Peking University and Tsinghua University rank the first and the second. Phil Baty, the chief editor at Times Higher Education, awarded the latest ranking certificate to Li Xiaohong.
The summit was held with the support of the Russian government’s ‘5-100’ project. Started in 2012, ‘5-100’ is aiming to enhance the international competitiveness of Russia’s higher education, which hopes to push 5 Russian universities into the top 100 in the world by 2020. The summit also comprised the event called ‘Russia Day’ as a special arrangement to introduce Russian universities and strengthen cooperation among universities from Russia and other countries. WHU Vice President Shu Hongbin, who was paying an academic visit in Russia, discussed his experience of university development with other representatives.
(Rewritten by Yue Rao, edited by Diana & Sijia Hu)
