On the afternoon of November 17th,the 2023 Silk Road Education Cooperation Expo, hosted by the Shaanxi Provincial People’s Government and organized by the Provincial Department of Education and universities in the province, opened in Xi’an. Representatives of the Ministry of Education, provincial government, foreign dignitaries, domestic and foreign experts and scholars and leaders of universities were present, and Wang Shusheng, deputy secretary of the Education Working Committee of Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee and director of the Provincial Department of Education, presided over the opening ceremony and inaugurated the “Center for Silk Road Humanities Research” together with Zhang Qing, deputy secretary of the Party Committee of the university, and Prof. Safarov Bakhodirhon Shahrylovich, vice rector of Samarkand State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering of Uzbekistan.
The newly established Center for Silk Road Humanities Research is centered on the “Belt and Road” initiative and the aiming at establishing a Shaanxi inland reform and opening up highland, relying on the platforms of the Institute of Silk Road Studies of Northwest University, the Central Asia Research Institute, the Collaborative Research Center for Archaeology of the Silk Roads, the Institute of Middle East Studies, the Hantang Institute International and so on, and constructing a new model of international collaborative and innovative research for East, Central and South Asia, and West Asia. And it strives to build an open and comprehensive Silk Road humanities research base with fruitful research results, significant consulting effect and influence at home and abroad, which will contribute to the implementation of the spirit of the “China-Central Asia Summit”, the implementation of the “Silk Road” program and the “Cultural Silk Roads” project and the building of a community of shared human future.
After the opening ceremony, the School of Urban and Environmental Sciences and the School of Economics and Management of Northwest University participated in the “New Zealand Higher Education Forum”, and discussed with the New Zealand universities on the possible cooperation. During the Expo, Northwest University will also host the “International Symposium on Building ‘One Belt, One Road’: Leading the High-quality Development of Sino-foreign Cooperation and Developing a New Path for Shaanxi’s Opening-up to the World”.
