November to December 2017，at the invitation of Dublin institute of technology, Ireland，Mr. Yan Yusong, president of Chengdu Technological University (hereinafter referred as CDTU) visited Ireland as one of the delegates of Overseas Study Project of A Thousand University Presidents of Central and Western China organized by Education Ministry of China to Ireland. The theme of this study project is “The Schooling Principle and Governing Experience of Application-oriented Universities”. The delegation consists of leaders from 19 universities in 10 provinces and autonomous regions in China, organized and implemented by China Education International Exchange Association.

During studied in eight universities, including University of Limerick, Dublin Institute of Technology and National University of Ireland, Galway, the delegation received 22 seminars and conducted 8 official visits and symposiums. The main content of the seminar is Irish education system and its higher education quality assurance mechanism, Irish institutions of higher learning focus on the curriculum setting, application research and industrial combination, school-enterprise cooperation, contribution of research innovation strategy to Irish economic development, innovation courses and research innovation, and improvement of students' employment skills. In addition, the training group assigns a field trip to the Shannon Aviation Maintenance Center, Datalex Co., , etc., learn more about the cooperation between enterprises and universities and the management of the company. The group has both knowledge on the exterior, common inspection, and detailed systematic learning and instruct. Moreover, the group has also communicated with graduated and related personnel who are studying, training, working and researching in Ireland.

During the trip, Mr. Yan, president of CDTU, conducted in-depth learning, communication and discussion upon the education system, school philosophy, education innovation, enterprise integration, quality assurance in Ireland, and particularly communicated with the visited institutes, introduced the basic condition and the schooling philosophy, which has laid solid foundation for building up friendly relationship with a number of Irish institutes and universities and reaching a preliminary intention upon establishing cooperation with Irish higher education.

This visit marks the first ever educational learning exchange of highest level since the establishment of China-Ireland diplomatic relations, which is highly valued and supported by the Irish Trade and Technology Agency and the Irish Ministry of Education. During the trip, Mr. Richard Bruton, Irish Minister of Education and Mr. Yue Xiaoyong, Ambassador of the Chinese Embassy in Ireland met with the delegation and held a discussion with all members of the group.

Mr. Yan said, as an application-oriented university, the CDTU will certainly accomplish the goal of the fundamental mission and the school philosophy of ethic development and talent cultivation, adhere to and implement the student-centered educational philosophy, building local application-oriented innovative talents, at the same time, the CDTU will adhere to the characteristics of industry-education integration, transform the talent training mode, effectively improve the quality of school education and the quality of personnel training, so as to build our school into a high-level local application-oriented and modern engineering university with distinctive characteristics at an early date.

Project Introduction:

In August 2012, the first session of “Thousands of Midwest University Presidents Overseas Training program” has been launched. This project, funded by Lee Shau Kee Foundation and Hong Kong Peihua Education Foundation with 80 million start-up, is implemented by the Ministry of Education and is planned to send a thousand Presidents of higher education in mid- and west-China oversea to learn to ensure the demand of “Optimize the regional layout structure and implement the Central and Western Higher Education Revitalization Plan” that was being delivered in National Medium- and Long-Term Ministry of Education Reform and Development Plan (2010-2020) , in order to strengthen the comprehensive governing ability of college leaders in the central and western regions, and improve the level of running schools in the central and western regions. The second phase of the project was implemented in 2017.