On the afternoon of March 27th, the awarding ceremony and cooperation agreement signing ceremony was held in the 2nd-floor conference room of north building of Xing Yuan Hotel. Giorgi Kvesitadze, President of Georgian National Academy of Sciences, presented Prof. Zhang Tiezhu and Prof. Lan Yubin with the certificate for foreign academicians. Afterwards, cooperation agreement was signed between Georgian National Academy of Sciences and Shandong University of Technology, according to which the Silk Road Research Institute would jointly be set up, thus open a new chapter in “One Belt & One Road” construction.

The distinguished guests presented the ceremony includes Bi Jiamei, President of China Rural Cooperative Economic Management Association; Yao Weike, President of China Association for International Scientific and Technological Cooperation; Liu Shujun, Deputy Director of the Organization Department of Shandong Provincial Party Committee; Zhou Lianhua, Party Secretary of Zibo; Bai Hao, Deputy Director of the Education Department of Shandong Province and member of the party leadership group; Zhou Zhonggao, Deputy Secretary and Vice-chairman of the party leadership group of Shandong Social Science Federation; Fan Yuejin, President of Shandong Higher Education Association; Hu Jinyan, Party Secretary of Qingdao University; Zhang Renzhong, Chairman of Yantai High-tech International Science and Technology Cooperation co., LTD; and leaders of SDUT — Lv Chuanyi, Zhang Tiezhu, Liu Guohua and Yi Weiming. Yi Yuchen, Deputy Party Secretary, presided over the ceremony.

Giorgi Kvesitadze presented the certificate for foreign academicians to Prof. Zhang Tiezhu, President and Deputy Party Secretary of SDUT, and Prof. Lan Yubin, Special Assistant to the President and head of the College of Agricultural Engineering and Food Sciences.

 Prof. Zhang Tiezhu, on behalf of foreign academician of Georgian National Academy of Sciences, delivered a speech, expressing his gratitude to Georgian National Academy of Sciences for awarding him with such an honor. He said, “This is more than personal honor, for it bears the effort of all leaders, colleagues and friends, from my alma mater Jilin University of Technology, to Qingdao University where I worked for 25 years, and to Shandong University of Technology I am now working hard for.” For him, being elected as the foreign academician means honor as well as responsibility. He would take the responsibility to, based on One Belt & One Road initiative, promote the comprehensive and in-depth cooperation between SDUT and the Georgian National Academy of Sciences and the Georgian higher education sector, facilitate the two sides to work together in scientific research, personnel training, platform building and other areas. He would work hard to be the bridge for scientific and technological innovation and cultural exchanges between our two countries, thus carry the exchanges and cooperation between our two countries.

Zhang Tiezhu and Giorgi Kvesitadze signed cooperation agreements on behalf of Shandong University of Technology and Georgian National Academy of Sciences respectively with all presented as witness. According to the agreement, during the five-year term, the two sides will jointly build the Silk Road Research Institute, including an international high-end scientific research and innovation platform, a joint research center for smart agriculture, and an international cooperative laboratory for microbiology. Besides, the two sides would jointly establish academician workstation and train international top talents. The Georgia Research Center in Shandong University of Technology will be set up. The two sides will explore the establishment of an alliance between universities in Shandong of China and Georgia to carry out in-depth and substantive cooperation in various fields.

 During the ceremony, Lv Chuanyi and Giorgi Kvesitadze jointly inaugurated the Silk Road Research Institute.

Lv Chuanyi delivered a gracious speech. He says that nowadays China has been committed to promoting the modernization of education and building itself into an educational power, so we are constantly opening up education to the outside world and strengthening exchanges and mutual learning with other countries; Today, the cooperation between SDUT and Georgian National Academy of Sciences will better gather educational and technological resources of countries along “the Belt & the Road, and help build scientific and technological innovation and personnel training platform, thus become a new model of cooperation between Shandong Province and institutes in countries along “the Belt & the Road, which will make contribution to the opening-up development of higher education in our province. He also says that SDUT, always insisting on operating in an opening-up and international way and focusing on the construction of talent team, is to promote education internationalization and its international influence. The two sides takes the cooperation agreement as a new start so as to be prepared to meet new challenges and achieve more. We will surely map out a better blueprint together and produce more colorful silk road stories, and contribute more to the non-governmental exchanges between the two countries and the construction of “the Belt & the Road.

In his speech Giorgi says that Georgian National Academy of Sciences has always devoted to cooperation with partners of scientific and technological potentials and rich achievements since its establishment. In recent years, the cooperation between China and Georgia has been strengthened all the time. The two countries have signed a bilateral framework agreement and the bilateral cooperation enjoys a sound foundation. Shandong and Georgia are at the same latitude, so they have many similarities in the soil, climate and biological diversity. The two sides will, in accordance with the agreement, conduct in-depth research in the field of plants, jointly carry out the scientific and technological development of modern bioengineering technology with broad economic value, and then further promote the scientific and economic development of China and Georgia.

Bi Meijia, Yao Weike and Hu Jinyan delivered speeches successively to express their congratulations on Prof. Zhang and Prof. Lan’s being elected as foreign academicians and the signing of the cooperation agreement.

Liu Shujun hopes that substantive progress will be made in deepening scientific research and internationalizing teaching. He also says that Shandong University of Technology focuses on the province's major development strategies such as the conversion of old and new energy supplys, strives to introduce, retain and make good use of all kinds of high-level talents, and further expands international exchanges and cooperation, in order to build a first-class domestic university and internationally renowned university.

Established in 1940, Georgian National Academy of Sciences is the major organization of scientific research in Georgia, with its mathematics, physics and phychology widely recognized by international community. Among the 120 academicians, there is President of Turkmenistan, four Nobel Prize winners and many outstanding scientists who were elected foreigns academicians from 21 countries. In September, 2018, our university established relations with Georgian National Academy of Sciences, and since then exchanges and visits between the two sides have deepened constantly. November 27th of 2018 witnessed the signing of a cooperation memorandum; November 28th saw the appointement of Giorgi andTina Ting—academicians of Georgian National Academy of Sciences, as honorary professors of SDUT. At the academician conference held in Georgian National Academy of Sciences in January 2019, Prof. Zhang and Prof. Lan were elected as foreign academicians. It is reported this is the first time that Chinese scientists have been elected as foreign academicians of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences.