On July 3rd, Qiu Yong, President of Tsinghua University, at the Higher Education in Cloud – Promise, Experience and Expectation event, announced that Tsinghua University will hold the “Global Summer School 2020" from July 20th to 28th.

Qiu Yong speaking at the event

President Qiu Yong stated that starting from 2020, the university will host an annual Global Summer School (GSS). This year, Tsinghua GSS will take place from July 20th-28th, entitled Toward a Post-Pandemic World. Utilizing a variety of virtual forms of learning including lectures, seminars, and interactive tours and performances, and bringing together Tsinghua’s top-quality educational resources and renowned Chinese and overseas professors, the program will explore a variety of topics, including economics, politics, society, education, climate change and leadership. Tsinghua GSS will welcome students from its global partner institutions, including the Global Alliance of Universities on Climate (GAUC), Asian Universities Alliance (AUA), and the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU ), to bring together students from different backgrounds to understand the opportunities and challenges facing our post-pandemic world, and to explore solutions for a sustainable future.

Global students attending Tsinghua Summer Schools in past years

Qiu Yong said it is hoped that Tsinghua GSS will serve as a platform to greater connect and strengthen cooperation with our partner universities, and that though this form of online interaction, we can ensure that during the pandemic our connectivity will not be diminished.

Summer schools are an important project for international exchange, which is of great significance for attracting talented international students on a large scale and promoting meaningful exchanges with prestigious universities. Tsinghua holds university-level and department-level global summer schools every year. Among them, the annual Experiencing China summer school launched in 2016 has been held successfully for four consecutive years. The number of applicants each year has increased from nearly 200 in 2016 to 1,400 in 2019 and 876 international students from 82 countries and regions from six continents have participated. Some outstanding students who participated in the program then went on to successfully apply for full-time graduate study at Tsinghua university.