On the morning of June 24th, the“EU-China University Governance and Academic Leadership Innovations Advanced Seminar and Workshops”successfully kicked off at NAEA. Executive Vice President of NAEA HouHuijun attended the opening ceremony and delivered opening remarks. Other remark-giving guests include: the former Vice Rector of Vrije Universiteit Brussel Jan Cornelis, the Vice President of Middle East Technical University GulserKoksal , and the LEAD2 project leader Zhu Chang from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The opening ceremony was presided over by Vice President Yu Jingtian.

Hou first expressed her warmly welcome to all participants from home and abroad on behalf of NAEA. She then introduced NAEA briefly, stressing that it was our tradition to stay open and build international connection. She thought highly of this program, pointing out that university governance reform played a vital role in face of globalization and both Chinese and foreign partners could gain experiences through communication.

Jan Cornelis mentioned that university governance required strategic planning and suited structure. LEAD2 aimed at widening the research scope and deepening its influence towards academic leaders.

GulserKoksal promised to devote herself into the LEAD2 program, to share valuable experiences and improve academic leadership together with all participants.

The LEAD2 project involves 12 partner institutions, 6 from China and 6 from the Europe. It was launched in March, 2019 and will last for three years. By conducting comparative research and organizing series of seminars and workshops, it plans to have MOOC courses, academic publications, and investigation reports, and to establish EU-China university governance research center, etc.

The seminars and workshops at NAEA was the first training program of LEAD2, which will last for six days. Apart from listening to keynote speeches, all participants will take part in various forms of activities, including field trip, structured discussion, group discussion, etc.(Chinese version by Qu Xiaoxiao, Department of School Management, NAEA; English version by Guo Zhen, Office for International Cooperation, NAEA)