Beijing, 12th January, 2016(BISTU) --- Xiaoying Campus of BISTU witnessed successful completion of BISTU’s first foreign affairs working conference with the theme “Enhancing Educational Internationalization, Facilitating BISTU’s Transformation and Development”. President Wang Yongsheng addressed to the conference, generalizing international achievements in recent years, offering a careful analysis of discrepancies and weaknesses of BISTU in educational internationalization, and clarifying objectives and major missions for BISTU going global. The conference is attended by whole university senior leadership members, deans of schools, directors of divisions, etc. Vice President Xu Baojie hosted the conference.  

In his report, Wang Yongsheng reviews and generalizes progress and major achievements of international work at BISTU, which include: institutional construction and management system are being perfected and foreign affairs working is increasingly improved; level of international collaboration is continually raised and educational internationalization has expanded to substantial areas like teaching and research; foreign expert work has been highlighted with extraordinary achievements and staff oversea training has been enhanced; evident growth has been achieved in producing opportunities for students’ exchange and BISTU wins initial success in degree programs for international students; and BISTU actively expand and extend international space for collaboration to promote development of international cooperative projects. Since 2012, the University has received visits of 600 international guests from 20 countries and regions. The year 2013 saw successful completion of International Forum on Training Excellent Talents and Enhancing Social Contribution. The following year welcomed the 5^th International Conference on Test and Detection Automation and Instruments hosted by Key Lab of Mechatronics Detection and Control. And in 2015, jointly working together with Tsinghua University and the University of Cambridge, BISTU inaugurated “Joint International Lab of Optoelectronic Technology”. Since 2011, the University has been granted almost 20 projects, with a total amount of fund reaching to 3 million Yuan, in the field of high-level talents and key foreign experts by State Administration of Foreign Expert Affairs and Municipal Bureau of Foreign Expert Affairs. The University also has successively appointed a group of international renowned experts and scholars as honorary professors, including Nobel Prize winning economist Robert Alexander Mundell and vice president of the University of Cambridge. Over a hundred international experts and scholars have lectured, visited, jointly researched or delivered modules at BISTU. Cooperative relations have been established between the University and almost 50 institutions in scores of countries and regions in North America, Europe, East Asia, and Taiwan region. Scale of short-term and long-term students’ exchange is growing. Joint doctoral degree agreements have been singed with 7 international partners, including University College Cork in Ireland, Oakland University in the U.S., University of Fukui in Japan, etc. The first cohort of outstanding postgraduate students were dispatched to University of Fukui in 2014 for doctoral degree programs. The University also actively expands and extends channels to recruitment of international students and focus on degree programs for international students. So far the University has enrolled an accumulative total of 469 international students. In 2013, the University started its first class for undergraduate international students. And in 2015 BISTU welcomed the first 2 postgraduate students.  

Wang Yongsheng pointed out that active progress has been achieved in international exchange and cooperation. From overall perspective, however, educational internationalization at BISTU is still on the initial stage. With review to educational internationalization trend and requirement of open education, discrepancies and weaknesses could be located in the respect of form, quality and content, level, atmosphere, policy, and measures of internationalization. The weaknesses stand out in the following aspects: objective orientation of the University’s educational internationalization is yet to be further clarified; the number of faculties with international background could not meet the demand of internationalization; insufficient specialties and courses are available for international students; and policy, environment and condition of international cooperative education are yet to be improved to support the University in enhancing educational internationalization.  

 　When talking about future objectives and major mission, Wang Yongsheng emphasizes that developing education in conformity with international standard is the essential pathway to BISTU development. Educational internationalization shall serve development strategy of the country and the region, contribute to enhancing educational internationalization, and be capable of facilitating BISTU’s transformation and development, which is the objective and major missions of BISTU’s educational internationalization. In the future, BISTU shall focus on the following aspects: firstly, BISTU will construct a faculty team fitting in the need of educational internationalization by means of both introduction and cultivation. Emphasized will be put on introducing talents with oversea background, especially those with high-level educational background. International training of current faculties shall be enhanced. And green passage and favorable policies shall be accessible to potential middle-aged and young faculties of featured disciplines. Secondly, guided by disciplinary construction, BISTU will build up high-level research platform for educational internationalization. Focus will be put on construction of first-class disciplines. Strengths of BISTU in Internet Plus and Modern Manufacturing will be highlighted. Some key disciplines and international research platform will be supported with funding and talent introduction. And support with featured, promising projects and project-leaders will be further enhanced. Thirdly, based on talent nurturing, BISTU is striving to achieve new breakthrough in international cooperative projects. And fourthly, overall planning will be conducted upon nurturing of undergraduate students, aiming at the achievement that some courses in part of disciplines are delivered in English.   

　Wang Yongsheng further stresses that accelerating the pace of educational internationalization at BISTU is a key component of the 13^th “Five Year Plan” as well as the strategic choice to which BISTU will adhere. It is hoped that the conference will be the new starting point for raising the awareness of the importance and urgency of internationalization. In-depth thinking on new challenges brought along by international strategy is required. All BISTU faculties and staff are expected to work collaboratively and endeavor to open up new prospect for educational internationalization at BISTU.  　 

Following President Wang Yongsheng’s report, overseas experiences and international thinking are exchanged in speeches delivered by Director of Academic Affairs Office Wang Xingfen, Deputy Director of HR Office Liu Guili, Vice Dean of Computer Science School Zhang Wei, Vice Dean of Media and Public Administration School Yi Qiang, Prof. Wu Guoxin of Key Lab of Mechatronics Detection and Control, and Zhao Cong, student representative for students’ exchange programs.