On the morning of February 22, Wuhan University President Zhang Pingwen met with a delegation led by Jean-Yves Roux, the newly-appointed consul general of the Republic of France in Wuhan. Both sides exchanged in-depth views on the prospects of deepening the cooperation between Wuhan University and France. Vice President Tang Qizhu and relevant officers from the School of Medicine and the Office of International Affairs attended the meeting.

Zhang Pingwen welcomed Jean-Yves Roux’s visit. Zhang provided an introduction to WHU, including disciplines and the current state of internalization. He also reviewed the fruitful outcomes of the 40-year-long cooperation between WHU and France in the fields of talent cultivation, scientific research and cultural exchanges. He said that communication and cooperation with France had always been a distinguishing feature and valuable component of WHU’s international cooperation and that WHU would continue to make efforts to further consolidate and develop the existing good cooperation and constantly explore new cooperative approaches to contribute to the educational and cultural communication between China and France.

Jean-Yves Roux congratulated both sides on the multiple high-quality outcomes of the cooperation between WHU and France. He pointed out that 2023 would be a critical year full of hope, in which he expected that China and France would make joint efforts to restart cooperation and resume the frequent exchange of students and scholars, support existing cooperation projects as well as explore new areas of cooperation. He said that the Consulate General of the Republic of France in Wuhan would provide consistent support.

During the subsequent discussions, Tang Qizhu suggested that China and France extend the scale of current student and teacher exchanges, discuss increasing the number of Sino-French experimental classes, establish more collaborative scientific research institutes and promote high-level communication and cooperation in key areas.

The two sides also discussed in detail the cooperation projects in certain fields, including mathematics, medicine, literature, digital culture and heritage protection.

After the meeting, Jean-Yves Roux and the delegation visited the Alliance Française in Wuhan.

Rewritten by Yi Kecheng

Edited by Wen Puwen, Sylvia, Xi Bingqing