The College of Engineering (COE), Peking University (PKU) and Baotou city of Inner Mongolia signed a three-party agreement on March 18 in Beijing for a series of cooperation in talents and technology.

As agreed, PKU will fully support the talents strategy of Baotou, to provide human resources development programs in various ways at PKU, and Baotou will fully stand by PKU’s needs in student cultivation, company starting up and technology transfer. Qingshan District of Baotou and COE of PKU will serve as pilot to carry out the cooperation.

On the signing ceremony in PKU Lakeview Hotel, major officials from Baotaou government, PKU and COE witnessed this moment. They included Qijun Guo, vice chairman of CPPCC of Inner Mongolia and  secretary of Baotou committee and Weidong Sun, vice secretary of Baotou committee and Baotou Mayor, the two highest level officials of Baotou. The PKU side included Shanlu Zhu, Chair of the University Council, and Zhipan Wu, executive vice president of the university. The COE side included Shiyi Chen, dean of COE, and Wenchang Tan, secretary of COE CPC Committee.

Chair Shanlu Zhu welcomed the delegation and expressed great anticipation of the cooperation. He pointed out, “As a top national university of China, PKU bears the responsibility to serve the nation and support the all-round development of the country. Located in the middle and west part of China, Baotou is a priority area to support according to the central government. PKU has a mission to employ its strength in talents and technology to support Baotou’s social and economic development.”

Qijun Guo said, “Baotou has abundant natural resources, but sustainable economic development should be talents driven. We are thrilled to establish partnership with PKU. Our goal is to realize the biggest value of our resources by drawing manpower from the highest institution of education in the nation.”

Early in 2012, COE has started collaboration with Baotou to jointly carry out many industrialization projects. Baotou has provided space and funding for many technology transfer projects of COE, and several industrial bases have been established in Baotou, attracting an increasing number of COE research teams to work there. In the next phase, COE intends to introduce more universities to take part, and bring in more projects.