On September 22, Professor Andrew Jones, President of Brunel University London (Brunel), and Professor Hua Zhao, Vice-President of Brunel, visited Wuhan University of Technology (WUT). WUT President Wang Fazhou attended the symposium, which was chaired by WUT Vice-President Luo Rong.

President Wang extended a warm welcome to the delegation, recalling the deep friendship between the two universities and his own memorable visit to Brunel. He noted that by optimizing academic structure and program portfolio, WUT has created a number of national and provincial key disciplines. In recent years, with strong emphasis on research, WUT has undertaken numerous national, provincial and ministerial-level projects. Leveraging state-level platforms such as the National Key Laboratory and the National Engineering Research Center, WUT has achieved remarkable achievement in materials science, transportation science, mechanical engineering and other fields. Close cooperative relationships with multiple industry enterprises have also been built, deeply promoting the “industry-education integration, collaborative development” model. President Wang stressed that the two universities enjoy high compatibility in disciplinary features and industry backgrounds, giving them enormous cooperation potential. He expressed WUT’s readiness to use this visit as a springboard to strengthen mutual practical collaboration in scientific research and distinctive discipline building, and to achieve new progress in jointly cultivating high-caliber global talent and promoting innovative academic cooperation.

President Jones thanked WUT for its hospitality. He observed that the partnership between the two universities is long-standing and solid. Since 2023, frequent high-level exchanges between the two universities' leadership have yielded substantial results. He fully agreed with President Wang that both institutions attach great importance to industry-academia-research-application integration and build close cooperation with industry, and he believed this shared strength should serve as a solid foundation a cornerstone for deeper cooperation. Brunel, he said, regards WUT as its most important partner in China and looks forward to a new round of collaboration encompassing more fields and formats of exchanges. He proposed that the two sides actively explore innovative models—such as co-developing courses, mutual credit recognition, faculty exchanges and joint education—to broaden cooperation and enhance its depth and breadth.

Vice-President Zhao spoke highly of the past collaborations between the two universities, praising WUT for fully utilizing its educational and research strengths to serve regional economic and social development and industrial innovation in areas such as marine engineering and new-energy automotive powertrains. This year the two universities have already launched a China-UK joint research project on low- and zero-carbon powertrain technologies and will further deepen scientific research cooperation and talent cultivation with WUT.

Representatives from WUT’s Undergraduate School of WUT, Graduate School of WUT, International Office, School of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Energy Power Engineering, School of Automotive Engineering, School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, School of Management, School of International Education, and National Graduate College for Excellent Engineers attended the symposium, where they introduced their disciplines’ characteristics and held in-depth discussions with the Brunel delegation on joint degree programs, student and faculty exchanges, summer schools and collaborative research.

Written by: Jiang Qiao, Fan Xiang

Rewritten by: Xu Hanyue

Edited by: Li Huihui, Li Tiantian

Source: International Office of WUT