President Yu Zhigang signed the agreement with President Susan Kathryn Avery
to build the International Joint Laboratory
Prof. Yu Zhigang, President of the Ocean University of China (OUC), met with Prof. Susan Kathryn Avery, President and Director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), on the Laoshan Campus of OUC on October 28, 2014 to sign an agreement to build the International Joint Laboratory.
Before signing the agreement, President Susan said that she is delighted to see that the two universities have made remarkable progress in cooperation after Vice President Yan Ju’s visit and singing the Memorandum of Understanding last year.
“WHOI and OUC have conducted fruitful cooperation and hope to further expand the fields of cooperation to make concerted efforts to promote the building of the laboratory,” she said, adding that the main participants of the Global Ocean Summit, hosted by OUC, had proposed to hold the summit once every two years.
President Yu extended gratitude to President Susan Avery for her attendance in such activities as the Presidents’ Forum, the Anniversary Celebration Ceremony, and the Global Ocean Summit. He said that this agreement is OUS’s first agreement on an international joint laboratory.
“OUC will take the development of the laboratory as one of its top priorities in terms of international cooperation and provide full support to it. Prof. Wu Lixin, member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is in charge of the daily activities of the laboratory along with the participation of other experts and scientists. OUC’s administration will offer service and support to it,” he said.
Based on the cooperation on physical oceanography, OUC hopes to expand the cooperation between the two parties to all the disciplines of marine sciences, which represents a great significance to OUC. By establishing partnership with such government and enterprises sections as Qingdao National High-tech Industrial Development Zone, the west coast of Qingdao New District, OUC will make efforts to conduct R&D and transfer of relevant technologies.
In conclusion, President Yu said that based on the sound friendship of the two parties, both sides would not only promote the development of the laboratory, but also make contributions to the Sino-US exchange in terms of technology, education, and culture.
In the preparatory meeting on October 27, Prof. Lin Xiaopei, Deputy Director of the Key Laboratory of Physical Oceanograph under the Ministry of Education, made a brief introduction of OUC and the current situation of the construction of marine-related disciplines. The participants of both sides had in-depth and extensive discussions on the content, model, and mechanism of our further cooperation and also on the details of the joint-laboratory agreement.
During the meeting, President Susan Avery expressed her congratulations on the 90th anniversary of OUC and the successful convocation of the Global Ocean Summit.
“OUC and WHIO have already made great progress in the field of ocean dynamics,” she said.
She hoped to expand the existing cooperation and agrees to establish the joint-laboratory. In addition, she also introduced the preparation of their Deep-Sea Automatic Robot Center, looking forward to the significant cooperation in ocean automatic observation.
“We have already made great progress in the early stage of the cooperation. On this basis, the building of the joint-laboratory will deepen the exchange and cooperation between our two sides,” Vice-President Yan Ju stressed.
She also hoped that both parties would cooperate in science and technology to have a better understanding about the ocean. She would like to invite Dr. Susan Avery to come to OUC to join the launching ceremony of the joint-laboratory.
