AUA Board Meeting 2018 held in Sanya

On April 9th, the Asian Universities Alliance (AUA) Board Meeting 2018 was held in Sanya, Hainan Province. Qiu Yong, President of Tsinghua University, and Yang Bin, Vice President and Provost of Tsinghua, attended the meeting. The other attendees included presidents, representatives, and professors from the member universities of the Alliance.

Qiu Yong, also the AUA President, presented the AUA Review 2017-2018 during the meeting.

The Board Meeting also reviewed and approved the AUA Financial Report 2017-2018, the budget for 2018-2019, and the programs of the Alliance for 2018-2019 in the domains of mobility, research collaboration, and strategy & policy, among others.

At the end of the meeting, all member universities voted that the University of Colombo would hold the Executive Presidency for 2019-2020. For 2018-2019, the Executive Presidency will be held by Universitas Indonesia.

Vice President Pomthong Malakul of Chulalongkorn University, on behalf of President Bundhit Eua-arporn who served as the AUA Executive President for 2017-2018, and Rector Muhammad Anis of Universitas Indonesia, who will serve as the AUA Executive President for 2018-2019, each delivered an address.

In his closing remarks, Qiu Yong extended his thanks to all the member institutions and the AUA Secretariat for their passionate and persistent dedication and noted that the Board Meeting was very productive. A good review of AUA’s progress and important decisions for the coming year were made. “I think we all agree that we had a wonderful start for AUA. A good beginning is half done,” said Qiu.

He also noted that more progress would be achieved in the coming year, and there would be many more exchanges of scholars and staff among the member universities. Qiu hoped all members could continue to support AUA just as they did in the first year. He is sure that in future, the AUA will attract more attention.

On the evening of the previous day, Qiu met with Wang Lu, Vice Governor of the Hainan Provincial Government, together with the representatives of the AUA member universities. In his address, Qiu noted that the AUA will work to enhance connectivity, promote knowledge exchange, nurture global leaders, and raise member universities’ regional and global impact. He believed that every member institution will benefit from the growth of the AUA.

Last April, board members and delegates of the fifteen AUA founding institutions gathered in Beijing and jointly launched the AUA. It was a significant milestone in Asian higher education. From that day on, the fifteen founding universities have been working towards the mission of jointly addressing regional and global challenges by strengthening collaboration among each other.

Writer: Zhu Lvhe