Along with academics from Swansea University’s College of Engineering, the two-day event welcomed seven distinguished professors from Tsinghua University, including Professor Zhuo Zhuang, President of Chinese Association of Computational Mechanics; Professor Yuxin Ren, Deputy Head of School of Aerospace Engineering; Professor Xiong Zhang, Head of School of Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering; Professor Zhihai Xiang; Professor Zhanli Liu; and Professor Yan Liu.

The Joint Workshop, which takes place every two years and is hosted on a rotating basis, aims to bring the two universities even closer and to extend collaboration amongst their respective academics.  Swansea University last hosted the Joint Workshop in July 2013, and Tsinghua University hosted the event in 2011 and 2015.

The Swansea-Tsinghua collaboration has resulted in numerous joint research projects, regular academic visits, PhD student exchange, high quality joint research papers in leading journals, and the joint Erasmus Mundus MSc programme in Computational Mechanics.

This year’s guests from Tsinghua University were warmly welcomed by Professor Steve Brown, Head of Swansea University’s College of Engineering, who officially opened the event and took part in the enthusiastic exchange of gifts between the institutions, symbolic of the strong bond between the two partners.

Professor Yuxin Ren, Deputy Head of Tsinghua University’s School of Aerospace Engineering, said: “It is always a pleasure to visit Swansea University and on behalf of Tsinghua University I thank you for having us as your guests.”

During the course of the workshop, 13 presentations were given by academics from both institutions. The presentations covered a wide range of research topics in computational mechanics and computational engineering including biomedical engineering, multiscale modelling, stochastic modelling, materials engineering, and other engineering applications.

While the Joint Workshop took place during vacation time, a number of Swansea’s postgraduate Engineering students attended the event, in order to benefit from the opportunity to meet, network with, and listen to talks by leading researchers in the field of computational engineering. Students from the College’s Zienkiewicz Centre of Computational Engineering (ZCCE) have already greatly benefitted from the collaboration.

At the Joint Workshop’s closing address, Professor Roger Owen, Research Professor in Civil Engineering at Swansea University and an international authority on finite element and discrete element techniques, mentioned some of the challenges which can be addressed by means of research. He emphasised on methods of teaching and learning and the need to reform the way we look at education.

“Progress has been made in all fields,” said Professor Owen. “However, the method of delivering knowledge hasn’t changed much in the last 400 years.

“We still use the classroom setting where an instructor lectures students. It is time we moved on and explored more innovative techniques of educating the youth.”

“We are excited about the continuing successful research collaborations between our two institutions,” said Professor Yuxin Ren, Deputy Head of Tsinghua University’s School of Aerospace Engineering

“We look forward to welcoming our distinguished Swansea colleagues in Tsinghua in two years’ time."

Swansea-Tsinghua partnership coordinator Professor Chenfeng Li, of Swansea University’s College of Engineering, added: “May this special bond between Tsinghua University, China’s leading university with great strength in the areas of engineering and technology, and Swansea University, a world leader in in computational mechanics, bring even more success.”

Tsinghua University’s Professor Zhuo Zhuang honoured

Swansea University further strengthened its links with Tsinghua University last week, with the conferment of an honorary doctorate degree, or EngD, on Professor Zhuo Zhuang, Chief Scientist of the National Fundamental Scientific Research of China and Professor at the School of Aerospace at Tsinghua University, for his extraordinary achievements in the field of computational engineering.

Professor Zhuang was presented to receive his EngD from Swansea University’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Richard B Davies, by Professor Steve Brown, Head of the College of Engineering, during the University’s annual Degree and Award Congregation for the College of Engineering on Thursday, July 27.

Image 1: The fourth Swansea-Tsinghua Joint Workshop for Computational Engineering.

Image 2: Professor Zhuang is pictured onstage receiving his EngD with Swansea University’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Richard B Davies.