UM holds UAUC joint meeting, Ho Iat Seng hopes UM contributes to high-quality development of Macao and country

The University of Macau (UM) held the Joint Meeting of the University Assembly (UA) and University Council (UC) for the 2023/2024 academic year at its Ho Yin Conference Hall today (8 July). Ho Iat Seng, chief executive of the Macao SAR, chancellor of UM and chair of UA, presided over the meeting. During the meeting, he said that Macao is in a new stage of development and should take advantage of its special status and distinctive strengths in national development to promote economic diversification. UM should help develop China into a leading country in education, promote the development of new quality productive forces, and support the country’s high-quality development.

Chancellor Ho Iat Seng set out four expectations for UM’s future development. The first is to seize the development opportunities in the Guangdong-Macao In-depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin. He pointed out that UM should fully leverage the resources of the Cooperation Zone to create a high-end platform for attracting, gathering, and utilising talent for Macao and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The university should actively explore innovative higher education models and improve the quality of talent development. At the same time, the university should accelerate industry-academia collaboration and promote the commercialisation of research results in the Cooperation Zone. The second is to contribute to the promotion of Macao’s economic diversification. He expressed hope that UM will strengthen the innovation ecosystem by focusing on talent cultivation, original innovation, and integration into the industry chain of the Greater Bay Area, so as to promote the organic integration between the talent chains, innovation chains and industry chains of the university, Macao, and the Cooperation Zone.

The third is to increase the level of internationalisation of Macao’s higher education. Ho suggested that UM should actively explore more innovative ways to attract more high-calibre talent and introduce more high-quality international educational resources, such as science and technology and education models, to Macao and the Cooperation Zone. At the same time, the university should encourage its students and faculty to go global and broaden their international perspective, so as to tell the good stories of Macao and China to the outside world. The fourth is to improve the management of the university. UM should uphold the principle of frugality in its management, ensure the rational use and allocation of resources, and continuously improve the efficiency of its administrative and financial management.

UC Chair Lam Kam Seng Peter summarised UM’s efforts in developing and serving the Greater Bay Area over the past year. He mentioned that UM, as a public comprehensive university in Macao, is fully aware of the role of universities in the development strategy of the Greater Bay Area and will continue to fulfil its functions of talent development and attraction, innovation and resource allocation, social services, and cultural heritage, thereby improving the quality of its academic standards and creating new driving forces and new strengths for development.

At the meeting, UM Rector Yonghua Song gave an overview of UM’s efforts over the past year to improve curriculum design for disciplines and programmes, enhance the quality of talent cultivation, continuously improve academic quality, and expand the university’s international network and international student population. He said that the university will continue to promote the development of key research areas, optimise innovation and implementation platforms related to industry-academia collaboration, and promote the commercialisation of research results, thus contributing to Macao’s economic diversification. In addition, Song presented the progress of the preparations for the implementation of cross-border education in the Cooperation Zone, as well as the future objectives of the new campus, its academic layout and management system.

Participants also had in-depth discussions on UM’s development priorities for the next stage and innovative mathematics education models. The joint meeting was also attended by members of UA and UC, and representatives of relevant departments of UM.