On the morning of March 27, a delegation from the University of Tennessee (UT), led by Prof. Tim Rials, Director of the Center for Renewable Carbon and Deputy Director of the Institute of Agriculture, paid a visit to UCAS. Prof. Wang Yanfen, Vice President of UCAS, met with the guests at the Yuquanlu campus. Prof. Yang Weicai, Director of the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, CAS, and Executive Deputy Dean of the School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences also attended.
Wang welcomed and briefed the American visitors on the university - institute’s fusion of leadership, faculty, and management, as well as UCAS's “two-phase” mode of cultivation. She also provided an overview of faculty and staff, graduate employment statistics, education of undergraduates, joint PhD programs and other topics about UCAS that interested the guests. Yang introduced the disciplinary structure of the School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences.
Prof. Rials introduced the history and faculty of UT, as well as the development of the Institute of Agriculture, emphasizing the Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy and Water Systems (INFEWS) program.
Both sides compared notes on topics of interest such as dual-degree programs and conducting cooperative research programs. Both side agreed to start their cooperation with student exchanges funded by the China Scholarship Council’s PhD Program.
Also in attendance were Prof. Hu Zhengyi, Executive Director of the Sino-Danish Center for Research and Education, UCAS and Prof. Zhang Yuanxun, Director of the Academic Affairs Department and Deputy Dean of the College of Resources and Environment, UCAS.
The University of Tennessee (also referred to as The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, UT Knoxville, UTK, or UT) is a public university in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1794, it is the flagship campus of the University of Tennessee system, with nine undergraduate colleges and eleven graduate colleges. It hosts almost 28,000 students from all 50 states and more than 100 foreign countries. Seven alumni have been selected as Rhodes Scholars, and one, James M. Buchanan, received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Economics. UT's ties to nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory, established under UT President Andrew Holt and continued under the UT–Battelle partnership, allow for considerable research opportunities for faculty and students.
The US National Science Foundation and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) support the development of a Research Coordination Network, designed to identify transdisciplinary research opportunities for scientists in the US and China focusing on the Innovations at the Nexus of food, energy and water systems (INFEWS). The overarching goal of INFEWS is to catalyze the well-integrated interdisciplinary research efforts to transform scientific understanding of the FEW nexus in order to improve system function and management, address system stress, increase resilience, and ensure sustainability.
