On March 22, the opening ceremony for Ningbo Institute of Technology (NIT), Beihang University was held. Cao Shumin, Party Secretary of Beihang University, and Peng Jiaxue, member of the Standing Committee of Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee and Secretary of Municipal Party Committee, attended the ceremony and delivered their speeches.
Other attendees include Zhao Gang, Deputy Secretary of Party Committee of Beihang University, Academician Li Chunxuan, Academician Yan Chuliang, President Assistant Wang Rongqiao, and relative leaders from the Department of Development and Planning, Publicity Department of the Party Committee, Ningbo Institute of Technology and Domestic Cooperation Office.
Cao Shumin expressed her sincere welcome to those who attended the ceremony. She pointed out that since its launching three years ago, NIT has received strong support from local governments at all levels in Ningbo City. It has undertaken plenty of projects, gathered a number of outstanding talents and made many great achievements, laying a solid foundation for future cooperation between the city and the university. She hoped that the two parties can give full play to their respective advantages to expand the breadth and the depth of cooperation, realizing a win-win situation for the local economic and social development of Ningbo City and the “double first-class” construction of Beihang University.
Peng Jiaxue expressed his gratitude to Beihang University for its support for Ningbo’s modernization. He said that Beihang University, the first university of aerospace technology in China, shares the same development direction with the city and the cooperation between the two parties has a great prospect. He hoped that, by taking this opening ceremony as a new starting point, both parties will continue to make efforts to expand cooperation fields and strengthen the win-win cooperative situation. They should join hands in cultivating comprehensive talents, tackling technological bottlenecks and promoting the transformation of scientific and technological achievements.
Following the ceremony, Cao Shumin and Peng Jiaxue visited the periodic achievements of NIT, on which they expanded a discussion and exchanged ideas.
In March 2018, Ningbo Municipal government and Beihang University signed a contract to build NIT. In June 2018, the institute was launched with a four-in-one cooperation mode: talent cultivation, scientific and technological innovation, achievement transformation and international communication. In the building stage, NIT recruited students and conducted scientific researches while transforming the related achievements. Led by five academicians and one Changjiang Scholar, six innovative research centers went into construction with focuses on material engineering, space equipment, intelligent manufacturing and intelligent transportation. Up to now, the institute has gathered 243 talents from different fields and provided services for more than 60 enterprises in the city, whose overall production capacity exceeds 6 billion yuan. 17 projects above the municipal level have been conducted by NIT. It has published 114 high-level papers and applied for 28 invention patents, with 8 of them authorized. Besides that, the institute has made breakthroughs in several professional areas, such as magnetic bearing design and locking technology and purifying smelting technology. It has also made great strides in the research of a new generation of aerospace bearing materials.
This opening ceremony is for the experimental research buildings phase I. The construction area of the first stage is about 48,000 square meters, including office buildings of the six innovation research centers. In the second stage, teaching and housing areas will be about 52,000 square meters, consisting of an international exchange center, a library, classrooms, canteens and dormitories, which are expected to be finished at the end of December this year.
Reported by Song Chao
Reviewed by Li Jianwei
Edited by Jia Aiping
Translated by Zheng Quan
