On June 10, Professor Tiziana Lippiello, Rector of Ca' Foscari University of Venice, led a delegation to visit the Songjiang Campus of Shanghai International Studies University (SISU). Yin Dongmei, Chair of the University Council, met with the guests, and the two sides held in-depthdiscussions onadvancing their joint education programs, promoting interdisciplinary collaboration, expanding faculty and student exchanges, and strengthening cultural and people-to-people ties between China and Italy.
Yin welcomed Rector Lippiello and her delegation on their return visit. She noted that since the partnership between the two universities was established, exchanges have remained close and the cooperative foundation has been steadily strengthened. Under the framework of their comprehensive strategic partnership, the two institutions have made encouraging progress in a number of practical initiatives, including joint degree programs.At present, SISU is actively leveraging its comprehensive strengths in disciplines including foreign languages and literatures, area and country studies, business administration, and art history, to explore innovative models forcultivating internationally oriented talent fit for the new era. She expressed the hope that both sides would build on existing achievements, further advance the effective implementation of various cooperative projects, and expand collaborationin areas such as strengthening Italian language program development, deepening Italian and Mediterranean studies, deepening innovation and management in cultural and creative industries, and cultural heritage preservation, and jointly building a comprehensive platform to support Chinese enterprises in their global expansion, thus jointly writing a new chapter of in-depth higher education cooperation between China and Italy.
Rector Lippiello thanked Yin for her warm reception. She spoke highly of SISU's distinctive educational features, its open internationalperspective, and its pragmatic and efficient cooperation mechanisms. She emphasized that Ca' Foscari University attaches great importance to its partnership with SISU and looks forward to further enhancing faculty exchanges, student mobility, and joint research on the basis of existing cooperation, while steadily advancing cooperative education programs. She also noted the potential to explore more flexible and diversified cooperation models by combining the complementary strengths of both institutions in language and culture, economics and management, cultural heritage and mutual learning between civilizations, thereby creating more opportunities for faculty and students from both universities to engage in academic and cultural exchange, and injecting new momentum into China–Italy educational and cultural cooperation.
During themeeting, the two sides reviewed earlier cooperation progress and held detailed discussions on the project implementation timelines,the optimization of training models, joint faculty development, and academic exchange arrangements. Both sides agreed thattheir partnership rests on a solid foundation and that future efforts could focus on deeper alignment in cooperative education, joint talent cultivation, collaborative academic research, and the integration of university, local government, and industry resources, to produce more tangible outcomes.
Veronica Giove, Office Director of the Secretariat of the Head of Administration at Ca' Foscari University, accompanied the visit. Representatives from the Office of International Cooperation and Exchange, the School of Business and Management, the School of European and Latin American Studies, and the World Arthistory Institute attended the meeting.
