Vice President Zhang Wenjun Attends the Annual Meeting of U21

The annual meeting of Universitas 21 (U21) was held at Lund University (Sweden) on May 7-11. On behalf of SJTU, one of the 23 member universities in U21, Vice President Zhang Wenjun attended the annual meeting and the seventh U21 Presidential Symposium: The Role of Universities in Today's Learning Society: the Knowledge Triangle and Beyond.

After the annual meeting, U21 Ranking of National Higher Education Systems, a project sponsored by Universitas 21, has been published globally on May 11. It gives the first ranking of countries which are the "best" at providing higher education based on the most recent data from 48 countries and territories across 20 different measures. The measures are grouped under four headings of resources, output, connectivity and environment.

The U21 Ranking aims to highlight the importance of creating a strong environment for higher education institutions to economic and cultural development, provide a high-quality experience for students and help institutions compete for overseas applicants.

Dr Cheng Ying from Graduate School of Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University was among the five-person Steering Group for the project along with Prof. David Greenaway, Vice-Chancellor of University of Nottingham, Prof. Don Fisher from Department of Educational Studies of University of British Columbia, Prof. Simon Marginson from Center for the Study of Higher Education, University of Melbourne and Prof. Ross Williams from Melbourne Institute of University of Melbourne.