Peking University, DEC, 11, 2013: The PKU Day was held at the University of Edinburgh, UK, on November 18th. Liu Wei, the executive vice president, and Li Yansong, vice president of PKU attended the activity with PKU delegation. Many professors and teachers from PKU and University of Edinburgh participated in this activity.

Sir Timothy O’Shea, the president of University of Edinburgh, held the opening ceremony. Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary of Scottish Government, Shen Yang, Minister Counselor of Chinese Embassy in UK, and Liu Wei, the executive vice president, gave a speech respectively. Fiona and Shen highly praised the cooperation connected between two Universities, and said that both the government of UK and China would support the communication of these two universities and even the whole higher education field actively. 

Liu Wei thought highly of the reputation and contributions made by the University of Edinburgh, especially the role it played in the European Enlightenment. He said that both of these two universities enjoyed a good reputation in their own country respectively and made outstanding achievements. The close cooperation founded in recent years had promoted the research deeply and enhanced the communication among students. The “PKU Day” could be regarded as an active response of the “Edinburgh Day” at PKU held in 2007, which showed the expectation from both sides to enhance the understanding between scholars of both sides and to expand the areas of cooperation. After the speech, Liu Wei and Timothy O’Shea signed a memorandum of the cooperation on behalf of the center for PKU UK Studies and Chinese Studies research center of University of Edinburgh, representing the foundation of cooperation in field of regional research. At the end of the opening ceremony, Li Qiang, assistant president of PKU, gave a keynote speech, titled with “The three decades of western political theory in China”.

That afternoon, the delegations communicated with corresponding department and college. Both of the sides showed strong expectation to push forward exchange and visit in field of Humanity Science, to manage joint education programs of graduates, especially the joint research focusing on urbanization, international and area studies, social survey data, economic, etc. Moreover, they would cooperate on funding for holding academic proceedings. Both the universities would also discuss new approaches of student exchange programs, such as exchange visit of student sports teams, young forum, joint summer group programs, etc. PKU also invited University of Edinburgh to be its co-chair of Green Campus Coalition.

After the visit, PKU delegation also visited Durham University, Oxford University, University of London, London School of Economics and Blair Faith Foundation.

Written by: Zhang Chao
Edited by: Qian Xin
Source: Office of International Relations