Vice President for Academic Affairs Ching-Hua Lo and Vice President for Financial Affairs Ming-Je Tang led a delegation of NTU administrative officials and faculty to the international conference titled Global Urban Challenges: The Role of Research Universities in Chicago. The delegation included Shu-Yin Chang, Dean of International Affairs, Sy-Yun Kuo, Dean for the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Li-Ling Huang, Director of Graduate Institute of Building and Planning. Chia-Pei Chou, a professor of NTU civil engineering and director of science and technology division at TECRO in the US flew from Washington DC to participate in the conference. Prior to the conference, the delegation joined NTU’s 85th Anniversary celebrations held by the NTU Alumni Association of Greater Chicago. After the conference, the delegation visited the University of Illinois at Urban-Champagne (UIUC).

On November 20 the delegation went to the international conference on Global Urban Challenges：The Role of Research Universities hosted by The Chicago Council of Global Affairs, Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Illinois. Nearly 200 representatives from more than 25 research universities from around the world discussed how universities, facing the challenges of urbanization, forge scholarly network to make significant contributions to fields such as urban health, urban education, and urban vitality. Associate Dean for College of Public Health Chang-Chun Chan and Prof. Chun-Yen Chang of the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture presented their research on urban health and urban sustainability, respectively.

After the conference, the delegation visited the UIUC on November 21-22 and met with Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Ilesanmi Adesida. During the visit, representatives from both universities showed high level of support and expectations towards the existing collaborations and future opportunities for expanding strategic partnerships. The delegation also visited the NSF-funded National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) located at UIUC, which provides computing resources and services to pioneering research projects. In addition, delegates from Landscape and Health, Urban Planning, and Smart Grids met with representatives from respective academic units at UIUC. The main purpose of this visit is to discuss implementation plans for becoming strategic international partners. To strengthen the bilateral partnership, two universities have agreed to organize an annual symposium that is held alternately in Taiwan and the US, in hopes for promoting long-term research collaborations in several departments between the two institutions. The first symposium will be hosted by NTU in 2014 and the theme is “Smart Cities, Healthy Cities”.

IUC is one of our sister universities and has signed campus-wide cooperation agreements with NTU’s colleges of social sciences, engineering, bioresources and agriculture, management, electrical engineering and computer sciences and life science. There have been active student exchanges and extensive faculty research collaboration with UIUC. To date, NTU has hosted 69 exchange students and has 61 faculty members who earned their advanced degrees from UIUC. In 2013 UIUC ranks 25th in the world in the Institute for Higher Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 56th in the QS World University Rankings and 29th in the Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings. It is a flagship public university and a role model to NTU.