Recently, our school and Università del Salento, held the on-line ceremony for the establishment of “Sino-European Canal Culture Studies Center” in Nanjing. President Sun Aiwu, Vice President Wang Dongdong, and President Fabio Polis, Vice President Rosita Damora, Università del Salento, Italy, attended the ceremony.

President Sun Aiwu delivered a speech in which he reviewed the fruitful achievements of our school and Università del Salento, Italy, since signing the friendly cooperation agreement in July 2018, which has continuously carried out various forms of cooperation and exchange, and has made great achievements in short-term cultural studies, summit exchange visits, and joint international symposiums. He said that even when the Covid-19 pandemic raged around the world, the two schools still maintain close communication and cooperation. The establishment of the “Sino-European Canal Culture Studies Center” aims at sharing academic information and resources through the Grand Canal Cultural Research and Exchange platform, promoting the sustainable development of scientific research cooperation and canal culture research and dissemination between the two schools. The establishment of the center marks a new level of cooperation between the two schools.

Fabio Polis, in his address, reviewed the history of cooperation between the two schools. He pointed out that the “Grand Canal” is the path of human desire to connect with each other and create a new type of mutually beneficial relationship. In the future, the two schools will use the study of the “Grand Canal Culture” as the main channel of cooperation and exchange, promote the two-way exchange of teachers and students, knowledge, research and ideas, and jointly study how to link the intangible heritage of the Grand Canal with innovation and new technology in the hope of developing to be the driving force of new sustainable economic and social development, and promote local creative culture and industrial development. He said he was pleased to work with HYIT to study and spread the canal culture and hoped that the two schools would jointly achieve sustainable development with a new and mutually beneficial model.

Wang Dongdong hosts the ceremony

On behalf of their schools, the presidents of the two schools respectively signed the agreement of the “Sino-European Canal Culture Studies Center”. Sun Aiwu and Wang Dongdong unveiled the center. The successful holding of the ceremony provides a new platform for all-round and multidimensional cooperation and exchange between our school and Università del Salento, which will promote the internationalization of our school to a new level. At the ceremony, the head of the China Project Department of Università del Salento introduced the vision plan for the launch of the Salento-HYIT Industrial Creative Culture and Industry Year in 2021.

HYIT faculty members from Office of International Affairs and North Jiangsu Development Research Institute also attended the ceremony.