The tide surges on the Huangpu River, wisdom converges in Shanghai. A grand intellectual feast focusing on the transformation of the global automotive industry arrived as scheduled—The 33rd International Colloquium of Gerpisa 2025 was successfully held at the School of Economics and Management, Tongji University Shanghai from June 24th to 27th, 2025.

Hosted in China for the first time, the colloquium was jointly organized by School of Economics and Management, Tongji University and emlyon business school, France. Centered on the theme “The Central Role of China in the Global Automotive Industry”, it explored three sub-themes: New Technologies and Evolutions of the Value Chain, Social and Regulatory Context, and Challenges for Work and Labor. The colloquium aimed to establish a high-level platform for academic and industrial exchange, promoting the joint development of theory and practice.

The colloquium brought together over 60 international professors and scholars from top universities, executives from globally renowned automakers, and government guests from 14 countries. It successfully hosted 3 plenary sessions, 21 parallel sessions, and organized two automotive brand company visits.

During the colloquium, industry elites shared insights and explored development trends. Parallel sessions focused on multiple topics, fostering idea exchange and the implementation of cutting-edge concepts. Visits to the NIO House and SAIC Volkswagen further immersed international scholars in Chinese enterprises, tightly integrating academia with practice and injecting new momentum into the development and research of the global automotive industry.

From the intellectually charged colloquium venues to hands-on enterprise visits, the 33rd Gerpisa International Colloquium anchored itself in China, connecting the technological breakthroughs, ecosystem restructuring, and future pathways of the global automotive industry. This dialogue spanning academia and industry not only outlined China’s central role in the global automotive map but also infused the sector’s transformation with forward momentum through an open and collaborative spirit.

The successful holding of the colloquium is a practical implementation of our school’s educational philosophy of “Rooted in China, Oriented to the World, and Serving the Industry”. By building this cross-border exchange platform, our school has not only showcased China’s automotive industry research achievements and practical experience to the world, but also, as an academic leader, promoted the integration and collision between China’s automotive industry theories and global cutting-edge ideas.

In the future, our school will continue to deepen its research in the automotive industry and contribute “Tongji wisdom” to consolidating and enhancing China’s core position in the global automotive industry landscape.