On 26 October, a delegation led by Professor Robin Banerjee, Vice-President of the University of Sussex, visited ZJSU. Vice-President Gu Qing met with the guests. The two sides held in-depth discussions on topics including discipline development in artificial intelligence, Sino-foreign cooperative education, and joint postgraduate training. A number of consensus points were reached, injecting fresh momentum into deepening the strategic partnership between the two universities and jointly cultivating international talents. Relevant heads and staff from the International Office, the College of Information and Electronic Engineering, and the  Artificial Intelligence Institute attended the meeting.

Gu Qing welcomed the visit by the University of Sussex delegation. He briefed Vice-President Robin Banerjee on the university’s new achievements and progress over the past year, with a focus on our strategy and practice of empowering interdisciplinary development through artificial intelligence. He noted that since the establishment of the partnership, the two universities have maintained close cooperation and yielded fruitful outcomes in artificial intelligence and related fields, serving as a vivid testament to mutual benefit and winwin results. He expressed the hope that, building on the Artificial Intelligence Institute, both sides would continue to consolidate the partnership, advance teaching and research in tandem, and actively explore cooperation in more areas. He proposed extending collaboration from talent training to joint research, staff and student exchanges, and joint training of high-level postgraduates, so as to share resources, complement strengths, jointly sharpen the brand of our joint talent programmes and lift the international influence.

Robin Banerjee thanked our university for the warm reception and spoke highly of the long-standing friendship and cooperation outcomes accumulated over the years. He presented the latest developments at the University of Sussex in the past year, highlighting its achievements in internationalisation. He remarked that the partnership between the University of Sussex and Zhejiang Gongshang University rests on a solid foundation with complementary strengths. He looked forward to deepening all-round, multi-level cooperation in joint curriculum development, collaborative research and alumni networking, to deliver sustained, substantive exchanges and mutual benefits for both institutions.

Following the meeting, the two sides held a forum at Artificial Intelligence Institute. Participants conducted thorough deliberations on core issues such as quality assurance for cooperative programmes and joint master’s and doctoral training. They exchanged views on practical matters including co-designed courses, formative assessment, research collaboration and joint supervision of doctoral candidates. They reviewed the performance of existing Sino-foreign cooperative education programmes, discussed plans for further programme enhancement and the future development vision for the artificial intelligence discipline, and reached agreement.

In the afternoon of the same day, the Sussex delegation also held an information session for students. The delegation gave a detailed introduction to the features, training framework and prospects of the cooperative programme, helping new students clarify their academic pathways. They patiently answered students’ questions concerning overseas study and joint training. The session featured lively interaction and positive feedback.