On April 11th, a delegation led by Thomas Hofmann, President of Technical University of Munich (TUM), visited Tongji University and participated in a series of events jointly organized by the two universities.

TUM delegation with the representatives from Tongji University

According to the MoU, qualified students from the School of Economics and Management, Tongji University (Tongji SEM) and the School of Management, Technical University of Munich (TUM SOM) will complete a one-year exchange program at the partner institution and receive a Master’s degree from both universities.

ZHENG Qinghua, President of Tongji University, said at the signing ceremony that TUM is one of Tongji’s most important overseas partners and expressed his desire to explore more opportunities for higher-level cooperation with TUM in the field of AI application.

Thomas Hofmann expressed high expectations and great confidence in the cooperation with Tongji. He said that universities, with the mission of scientific innovation and talent cultivation, have the obligation to lead technological development to meet the needs of social change, solve practical problems facing the world today, and cultivate students into all-round talents capable of adapting to future industrial changes and economic development. Therefore, cooperation and exchanges between universities in different countries of the world are of great importance.

Tongji SEM, as a top business school in China, is committed to developing globally competitive talents, while TUM SOM, as one of the most famous management schools in Germany and even Europe, is renowned worldwide for its rigorous academic approach and excellent teaching quality.

The cooperation between the two parties will help optimise the allocation of educational resources and provide strong talent support for the economic development of the two regions through the joint training of dual-degree master’s students in management. The cooperation not only provides students from both sides with the opportunity to experience the educational environment and cultural atmosphere of different countries, but also broadens their international perspective and enhances their cross-cultural communication skills.

Presidents of the 2 universities signed the cooperation MoU

Presidents of the 2 universities delivered speech

The signing of the MoU between the two renowned universities lays a solid foundation for the development of high-level talents with international perspectives and innovative capabilities. It not only provides richer educational and academic resources and broader career development opportunities for business students from both sides, but also brings vitality to the cooperation and exchanges in education between the two countries. In the future, the two universities will continue to deepen cooperation and jointly explore more innovative models for talent development.

In the evening, the TUM delegation also held an alumni event at Tongji SEM, which was the biggest alumni event during their trip to China this time. LOU Yongqi, Vice President of Tongji University, attended the event and gave a speech. YIN Wen, Director of the International and Cooperation Office of Tongji University, and representatives from Tongji SEM, including SHI Qian, Chairman of the School Council, XIE En, Acting Dean, WANG Hongwei, Deputy Dean, HAN Zheng, Professor of Department of Innovation and Strategy, and Grace SHOU, Director of Public Relations and Communication Center and Deputy Director of EMBA and MBA Programs Center, also attended the event. Many TUM alumni currently working for Tongji University also attended the event.

LOU Yongqi presented the “Tongji Tianxia” calligraphy scroll to Thomas Hofmann

TUM is located in Munich, the capital of Bavaria in southern Germany. It is a member of the TU9 (German Universities of Technology) and has been named Germany’s elite university three times in a row since 2006. TUM has become a symbol of German universities in the world and is consistently ranked number one in Germany. Since the first inter-university cooperation agreement between Tongji University and TUM was signed in 1995, the two universities have closely cooperated in the fields of electronics and information, civil engineering, urban planning, economics, management, machinery, surveying and mapping, medicine, etc., and achieved fruitful results through various forms of cooperation, such as student exchanges, master’s degree programmes, joint scientific research, joint course offerings and international conferences.