EU team visits university in Xi'an to promote exchanges

A delegation of the European Union visited Xi'an Jiaotong University on Friday in Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province, to promote humanities and educational exchanges and cooperation with the school.

The nine-member delegation, led by Androulla Vassiliou, the EU's commissioner of education, culture, multilingualism and youth, came to further promote the exchanges and cooperation between the European Union and Xi'an Jiaotong University in sending teachers and students from the school to Europe for research and study.

The university became the only Chinese member of the Top Industrial Managers for Europe Association on Oct 16, 2009, which gave the school more opportunity for exchanges and cooperation with European universities.

The TIME Association, with 51 member universities including Munich University of Technology, Technical University of Berlin, Paris Central University, Polytechnic University of Milan, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and Lund University in Sweden, provides an exchange platform for the students and teachers from Europe's leading engineering colleges and universities to carry out scientific research and exchanges.

From 2009 to last year, an education exchange and cooperation project was launched by the EU with 163.5 million euros ($211 million) to support universities outside of Europe for educational exchange and cooperation, and Xi'an Jiaotong University was listed as one of the universities to be supported.

During the visit, Vassiliou gave a lecture to students and teachers at the university to further stress the significance of the educational exchange and cooperation.

The delegation and university will hold the fifth China-EU seminar on engineering education early next month at Xi'an Jiaotong University to further promote cooperation.