The 2nd Industrial Board of the College of Engineering (COE) recently held its 5th meeting in a venue in Huairou District, Beijing. The meeting gathered together about 20 board members and 30 COE professors to jointly discuss COE’s development issues. Different from the 4th meeting held in July last year, the meeting split into three sub-committee panel meetings after the plenary one, to discuss cooperation possibilities in more specific fields.

Established in October 2006, the Industrial Board of COE has now expanded to include nearly 30 members, most of whom are chairmen, presidents or CEOs of state-owned and private industrial corporations. The mission of the Industrial Board is to assist companies in building a strategic partnership with COE in areas such as sponsored research, student cultivation, technology transfer, philanthropy and other related areas.

Taking into account of newly-established partnerships and personnel movements, the 5th meeting breathed in seven new members. They are Mr. Marc Allen, President of Boeing China, Mr. Jianhui Lai, Chairman of Zhenxing Wheel Group Co., Ltd., Mr. Ming-Chien Shan, Fellow and Vice President of SAP, Mr. Zhengrong Shi, Chairman & CEO of Suntech Power Co., Ltd., Mr. Heping Wang, Chairman of Rundili Real Estate Investment Group, Mr. Chengzhu Xu, President of Schlumberger China, and Mr. Xinjian Xu, Chairman of Micoe Solar Energy Co., Ltd.

"As Chairman of the Board, I’m very glad to see that during the past year, the relationship between the industry and COE are deepening, and more and more cooperation have been materialized. Also, the member list is growing,” said Yaowen Wu, Chairman of China National Coal Group Corporation, and Chairman of the COE Industrial Board.

COE Dean Shiyi Chen serves as the Executive Vice Chairman of the Board. He pointed out that the Industrial Board has played an important role in COE’s growth, in his report on the meeting about the recent major progress of COE in term of research projects, university partnerships, government relations, and industrial cooperation.

Many of the board members expressed willingness to further their collaborations with COE. After the plenary meeting, panel discussions were conducted by three Sub-Committees, namely the Sub-Committee for Aerospace, Mechanical Engineering & Manufacturing, Sub-Committee for Energy, Resources & Environment, and Sub-Committee for Information Science, Materials, Chemical Engineering &Biological Engineering, to have further discussions with related COE faculty members.