On the morning of September 27, Professor Jan Cornelis, the Vice President for research of the Belgian Free University of Brussels, and Professor Hichem Sahli from the School of Electronics & Information Processing visited XJTU.

Vice-President LU Tianjian gave the visitors an introduction to the history, and research and educational programs at XJTU. He also outlined the relationship between XJTU and the Xi'an Hi-tech Development Zone. Vice-President Cornelis said that the Free University of Brussels was very willing to enter into a partnership with XJTU and the Xi'an Hi-tech Development Zone in order to facilitate the transformation of the two universities' research results into viable projects.

Later, Vice President Cornelis and his party visited XJTU's Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics where he met with some of the teachers and students. He also met with Director LIANG Li and Deputy Director HE Changzhong of the Department of International Cooperation and Exchange. Together they reviewed the EU's Erasmus program and the CSC state-sponsored research program successfully conducted by the two universities, and they discussed the possibilities of developing new cooperative Masters and PHD programs.