We are pleased to announce that our School of Economics and Management has been approved by the National Scholarship Council for the Innovative Talent International Cooperation and Training Program. This marks the first time our college has received funding for this prestigious program.

The project, titled "Joint Training of Intelligent Transportation Internationalization Talents for the Strategy of Building a Strong Transportation Country," is led by Professor Wang Yacan. It aims to support the exchange and collaborative research of up to 10 students each year at the University of Leeds in the UK and the Free University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The project will annually support 2 doctoral students, 4 joint doctoral students, 2 joint master's students, and 2 visiting scholars. The selected majors include systems science, management science and engineering, transportation engineering, applied economics, and environmental science and engineering. The approved funding period for the project is three years, with a rolling three-year funding period for 30 people. Each study abroad period will last for 3-4 months. During this period, the Foundation Committee will provide one round-trip international travel and scholarship.

The "Innovative Talents International Cooperation and Training Project" was established by the Management Committee of the China Scholarship Council in 2014 to cultivate innovative, scarce, and compound international talents in support of the national strategy, comprehensive reform in the education field, and the construction of first-class universities and disciplines.

The successful establishment of the "Joint Training of Intelligent Transportation Internationalized Talents for the Strategy of Building a Strong Transportation Country" project is a testament to our college's strong foundation of cooperation with British and Dutch universities. Since 2018, our university has signed dual master's and dual doctoral training agreements with the University of Leeds in the UK and the Free University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, totaling 4 inter-university cooperation agreements. Our college has also established long-term teaching cooperation and interaction with these universities. Multiple foreign professors have been hired as part-time professors at our school, and we have persisted in conducting biweekly academic meetings with our school team to guide students. We have conducted multiple offline and online lectures for our school students and have collaborated on training schools to teach cutting-edge research methods. Multiple professors from cooperating units have visited our school multiple times to attend conferences and hold special lectures, and have continuously conducted in-depth academic discussions with our school's teachers and students through online lectures during the epidemic period.

The "Joint Training of Intelligent Transportation Internationalized Talents for the Strategy of Building a Strong Transportation Country" project is designed to cultivate outstanding talents in transportation who are innovative, interdisciplinary, and internationally pioneering. The project will focus on interdisciplinary integration in the field of intelligent transportation, combining the academic research advantages of British universities in transportation engineering and Dutch universities in regional transportation and environment. The project aims to cultivate composite intelligent transportation internationalization talents with interdisciplinary advantages, international perspectives, mastery of advanced theories and research methods, cutting-edge research and practical abilities, and competence in modern transportation decision-making and management.

The successful approval of this innovative talent international cooperation training project will promote the cross integration of our school's advantageous disciplines in the field of smart transportation, enhance international academic reputation, and further leverage our school's leading role in the field of smart transportation globally.

Introduction to Cooperative Schools

University of Leeds

The University of Leeds is one of the top 100 universities in the world and one of the top ten in the UK. It is a founding member of the Russell University Group and a member of the World University Alliance. The 2020 Times Higher Education World University Influence Ranking placed it 3rd in the UK and 11th in the world, and QS ranked it 86th in the world in 2022. The university has produced six Nobel laureates. The Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) at the University of Leeds is one of the world's top and largest transportation science schools in Europe. In 2017, Shanghai Ranking (ARWU) ranked it first in the UK and fourth in the world in the discipline ranking of transportation engineering.

Amsterdam Free University

The Amsterdam Free University is one of the top 100 universities in the world, renowned as a world-class research university. It is also a member of the European Association of Universities (EUA).