Chengdu and South West Jiaotong University

It has been a flying (literally) visit to Chengdu. We arrived less than 24 hours ago and are now waiting again at the airport to fly on to Shanghai. It really is a nice looking city and it would have been nice to have stayed longer and had a longer look around a city which is home to 15 million people.

The main purpose of coming to Chengdu was to visit South West Jiaotong University. This is one of China's leading universities and "the" leader in railway engineering. It is well known that one of CQUniversity's main research strengths is railway engineering - so the two universities could have a good partnership. It was good to meet with Vice President Xiaoyun Feng to discuss possible links.

Also seen in this picture is Dr Pengfei Wang the Director of their International Affairs Office.

We also met with Professor Yan Kaiyin, Professor Yanjun Qiu, Professor Jianguo Jiuwen and Ruojun. We are all ver grateful for the time that they made available to us. We are looking forward to hosting a visit from the President of South West Jiaotong University later in the year.

We discussed some very innovative ways in which the two universities can collaborate both in China and Australia. I am looking forward to getting back to Australia to discuss the partnership with CQUniversity staff.

Now onto Shanghai and a real luxury - two nights in one bed!!!