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APRU HIGHER EDUCATION FORUM A FIRST IN
BEIJING
Senior
leaders
from top-tier Chinese and Pacific Rim universities engage in
dialogue
March 9, 2006 -
The Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU) held a higher
education forum on March 9, 2006 in Beijing, China, the first such
forum bringing together senior staff and officials of top-tier
Chinese and Pacific Rim universities.
APRU is a consortium of 36 leading research universities in the
Pacific Rim. It aims to foster cooperation in education, research
and enterprise. Its activities include student mobility programs,
distance learning initiatives and trans-Pacific research projects in
areas such as technology transfer and internationalization.
Held in conjunction with the annual Senior Staff Meeting hosted this
year by Peking University, the Higher Education Forum addressed the
topic of New Horizons in China's Higher Education Sector with two
panels on Global Strategies and Research Innovations. Attended by
heads of international offices and senior officials of top research
universities, the panels sought to address key concerns of a
burgeoning Chinese tertiary education sector.
Minister Wu highlighted the 211 and the 985 projects undertaken by
the Chinese central government. These projects involve the
accelerated growth of higher education institutions in China and
strategic directives for selected top-tier Chinese research
universities to achieve world class status. These serve to position
China as an innovative science and technological nation and develop
China's economy through advanced research.
Following the keynote were discussion panels on Global Strategies
and Research Innovations. The discussion on Global Strategies in
higher education included current internationalization trends in
China and possible paradigm shifts in academic governance. The
afternoon panel on Research Innovations informed participants of
research activities and strategies employed by both top universities
in China, Japan and the US.
The dialogue highlighted universities' efforts to sustain research
excellence through wide ranging inter-disciplinary collaboration,
de-centralizing research activities and seeking funding resources
from various private and public domains.
Included on the panels were APRU speakers from University of
California in Berkeley, University of Sydney, University of Southern
California and Kyoto University. Chinese speakers hailed from Peking
University, Tsinghua University, Fudan University and the University
of Science and Technology of China. A total of 79 representatives
from top-tier Chinese and APRU universities were in attendance. The
Forum was also co-organized by the China Society for Human Resource
Development of Institutions of Higher Learning.
The close of the Forum was marked by a formal dinner hosted by
Professor Xu Zhihong, President of Peking University.
The APRU Senior Staff Meeting, following the Forum, convened 46
senior leaders and representatives from 24 APRU member universities.
The governance meeting, held annually at member universities across
the Pacific Rim, comprises APRU senior staff as key drivers of APRU
who develop, implement and review new and existing APRU programs and
initiatives to achieve APRU?s objectives. (Please refer to Senior
Staff Meeting 2006 Program Schedule)
* * * *
For more information on APRU's activities, visit www.apru.org.
Media contact:
Ms Jacquelline Heng
Projects Manager
APRU Secretariat
Tel: (65) 6516 8883
Email: jacquelline.heng@apru.org