At 3:00 pm on September 19 ^th, Mr. Matthew Knowles, Education Consul of British Consulate General, and his team was received by Vice President Chen Long of Jiangsu University. A cordial discussion was held on the cooperation and exchanges between the SI-UK Education Council and British institutions of higher learning and JSU in its objective of “constructing a double first-class university” . Responsible officials of the Academic Affairs Office, the Language and Culture Center, and the School of Foreign Languages attended the meeting.

Vice president Chen Long first introduced to the visitors the important initiatives and outstanding achievements of Jiangsu University in practicing the strategy of educational internationalization. He pointed at a fund of RMB 5,000,000 sponsored by JSU to support students in taking the IELTS, TOEFL and other international English proficiency tests, applying for short-term overseas study programs, and attending international academic conferences. Moreover, JSU has been making unremitting efforts in applying for an IELTS center, actively advancing the college English education reform, and investing more money in the construction of teaching facilities. He emphasized that in the process of building Jiangsu University into “a double first-class university”, we will strive to maintain and give play to our advantages in the traditional discipline of agricultural machinery and to develop in the meanwhile other strong disciplines. Mr. Matthew Knowles spoke highly of the international strategy of JSU, noted especially the construction of “a double first-class university”, and extended his wishes to help apply for the IELTS center as well. He said, the British Ministry of Education has always attached great importance to the cooperation and exchanges with colleges and universities in Jiangsu province, and the British Ministry of State for Universities and Science is scheduled to head delegates to visit the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University at Suzhou in late September, expecting to sign an agreement on the establishment of a cooperative alliance between the two parties to promote and attain the objective of exchanging 100 teachers and 1,000 students between British colleges and universities and those in Jiangsu province.

Agreements were reached between the meeting parties in other areas, such as jointly promoting the English proficiency of    teachers, improving the quality of teaching a course in English, and expanding the international influence of research papers and scientific achievements.