Between April 23-28, Vice-President Xiong Caidong of UESTC led the delegation and visited Melbourne University, University of New South Wales, James Cook University, Oakland University in Australia as well as Victorian State Government to promote exchanges and cooperation among UESTC with universities in Australia and New Zealand. During this visit, the delegation also met with the leaders of the Education Department from Chinese Consulate General in Melbourne, Australia.

On the morning of April 23rd, the delegation visited the University of Melbourne and talked with Vice-President Simon Evans. Simon Evans also recalled with delight his visit to UESTC in last year. He showed that the university environment and the solid strength of students and engineering disciplines all left him a deep impression. Melbourne University will continue to energetically expand the engineering field in the future and fully support the exchanges between teachers and students and scientific research cooperation between the two universities.

The delegation met with leaders of Engineering College in University of Melbourne and professors such as Jamie Evans、Andrew Ooi、Shanton Chang、Ruoli Zhuang as well as International Admission Office Director Miriam Cahir. Both sides expressed the hope that they could launch the “3+1+2”Joint Training Program to provide opportunities of continuous studying in undergraduate and graduate on two universities for good-record students, which was built on the Summer Camp and High Level Graduate Program of China Scholarship Council in the past.

The Melbourne University ranks top overall among Australian universities with a long history and profound academic tradition. The leaders and professors of related disciplines of two universities all hoped to motivate the interaction and communication in the fields of communications, signal processing, information security, big data, cloud computing, data mining, data and information security and others.

Following the talks, the delegation visited teaching laboratory of Engineering College, mechanical engineering training center, and students free discussion area at Melbourne University.

On the day of arrival, the delegation had a meeting with Counsellor Zhao Jiang and Consul Nie Wenkai from the Chinese Consulate General in Melbourne as well as Chinese scholars working in Melbourne universities.

That afternoon, the delegation was invited to Victorian Government, met with Mr. Jason Fitts, a regional expert in charge of China''''s investment and trade, and Rebecca Skinner, an executive director of international education & industrial development and innovation office, and heard the strategic planning of the Victorian State Government on international education cooperation and industrial development.

Xiong Caidong, Vice-President of UESTC said that Melbourne is not only one of the most livable cities in the world, but also a city of rapid development, vigor and vitality. As a friendly province of Sichuan Province, Victorian State has always retained a good relationship with Sichuan Province. UESTC would make a significant contribution to the promotion of local economy development between the two countries and scientific and technological progress, through cooperation with Melbourne University, Deakin University and Monash University.

On April 24th, the delegation went to University of New South Wales, a world renowned university for multiple engineering disciplines, and met with Tanya Spisbah, the Director of the International Strategic Development Department of this University, Professor Eliathamby Ambikairajah, Dean of the College of Electrical Engineering and Communications.

On the meeting, Professor Rao Yunjiang, the Director of “111 plan” Innovation and Intelligence Project Base for Optical Fiber Sensing and Communications Discipline, and Professor Peng Kangding at the University of New South Wales, respectively signed the cooperation agreement on Optical Fiber Engineering Joint Research Center (J-Force), and officially launched the two universities’ scientific research cooperation and postgraduate Joint Training Cooperation Program. Professor Rao also made special reports on the central research plan.

Then the delegation held talks with Professor John Shepherd, the Vice-Dean in the College of Computer Science and Engineering in charge of teaching affairs, and they talked about the model of student joint training and cooperation in running universities.

After the meeting, accompanied by the professor Peng Kangding, the delegation visited optical fiber communication laboratory building which had just been activated and had world-class advanced equipment.

On April 26th, the delegation came to the Keynes campus of James Cook University located in northeastern Australia, and had a meeting with Professor Iain Gordon, Vice-President responsible for Scientific Research, Ms. Melissa Banks, Vice-President responsible for International Affairs, Professor Marcus Lane, Dean responsible for the College of Science and Engineering, Ms. Janie Edwards, Director responsible for the International Partnership Development Office and UESTC alumnus Professor Xiang Wei.

James Cook University is one of the most promising young universities in the world, with its leading position in oceanography, marine biology research, resources and environment research and so on, and owns Australia''''s only major in the Internet of things. James Cook University wishes to deepen cooperation with UESTC of information and communications related major in personnel training and scientific research.

The leaders of two universities believed that UESTC has a first-class teaching and research team and excellent student resources in the field of electronic communications, while James Cook University has the world''''s leading disciplines in marine biology, resources and environment, and the most advanced experimental conditions for ocean communication research. Therefore, these two universities have strong complementary advantages and good prospects in the development of personnel training and research cooperation.

Two universities made an agreement to start immediately the preparatory work of the Joint Laboratory, convened the first year professor academic symposium in August this year, and determined the specific content of laboratory planning. This summer, UESTC will also select second group of students to study and exchange in Keynes, and experience different learning environment, tropical culture and marine resources.

Accompanied by the Dean of the College of Dentistry, the delegation visited dental teaching laboratory and dentistry clinic which have advanced equipment and aim at teaching and public service.

On April 27th, the delegation visited Oakland University in Oakland, the North Island of New Zealand. UESTC began student exchange with their university in 2009, including term exchange, summer camp, "2+2" and other forms. Professor Caroline Daley, the Dean of the graduate university at Oakland University, had ever been visited UESTC in 2016 and she was very impressed with the campus and the students in UESTC.

The delegation also discussed the Joint Training Program for multiple disciplines with Head of the Faculty of MSc Sebastian Link and Garry Miller, the Faculty of Education Ms. Marek Tesar as well as Head of the International Faculty. Both sides agreed to work out text preparation on bachelor-master continuous study program of “3+1+1”and“4+1+1”, take advantage of UESTC world-leading education characteristics, and initiate the preparatory work of UESTC for the teacher training base in the southern hemisphere.