SCUT and the district government of Shunde in the city of Foshan will work together on starting an innovative zone, which will bring together high-level professionals and deliver strong support to the innovation-driven development of manufacturing and the industrial transformation and upgrading in Shunde.
An agreement was signed on July 13 to confirm the building of SCUT’s Shunde Innovation Park. Distinguished guests that attended and addressed the signing ceremony included Zhang Xichun, Secretary of the CPC SCUT Committee, Zhu Wei, Mayor of Foshan, and Ou Bangmin, Secretary of the CPC Shunde Committee.
Shunde, situated next to the south of Guangzhou, is an important section of the Guangzhou-Foshan metropolitan circle. After nearly forty years of economic reform and opening-up, it is now one of China’s most productive centers for manufacturing industries.
SCUT has a long history of close connections with enterprises in Shunde. In 1979, when China was on its first steps of economic reform, faculty members of SCUT used to be technical consultants at the Midea Group, which later turned out to be one of China’s largest electrical appliance manufacturers. Those consultants were called “Sunday engineers” for giving substantial assistance to the early development of Shunde.
The tradition endures till today, as a great number of technologies developed by SCUT have been transferred and used by well-known brands headquartered in Shunde, such as Midea, Galanz, also a manufacturer of electronic home appliances, and Lesso, a manufacturer and service supplier of home building materials.
Zhang Xichun, in his remarks at the signing ceremony, pointed out that SCUT will merge its academic excellences with Shunde’s merits in industry to create a new path of collaboration between the university and the local level.
“We are going to reconsider the earlier cooperation pattern that covered all sides, and instead, we will focus the attention and go forward for only one or two aspects. This is a faster way to lay stress on solving common and key issues that enterprises are faced with.”
Zhu Wei and Ou Bangmin both indicated that the local authorities of Foshan will provide full support to the innovative zone, which they believe will help build the National Self-dependent Innovation Demonstration Area in the Pearl River Delta and bring major opportunities for emerging industries such as intelligent manufacturing in Shunde.
The Shunde Innovation Park, planned as a sub-zone of SCUT’s National Science Park, will be build at the University Satellite Town on the south of Guangzhou. It will take several years to construct a 40,000-square-meter area, which will function as a hub for incubating high-tech firms, attracting high-level professionals to move in, and promoting technology transfer in Shunde.
Source from the University News Cente
rTranslated by Xu Peimu
Edited by Xu Peimu and Deng Langchu
