On the morning of September 11, "Advanced Civil Engineering Materials Collaborative Innovation Center" ("Center" for short in the following passage) was inaugurated at SEU's Jiulonghu Hotel. The Center was jointly established by eight universities such as Tongji University, Tsinghua University, with SEU as the initiator, and five companies including Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Building Sciences Co., Ltd., China Construction Engineering Stock Co., Ltd. The Center is our school's second collaborative innovation center of "2011 Plan" after "Wireless Communication Technology Collaborative Innovation Center".
Present at the inauguration ceremony were Cao Weixing-Vice-Governor of Jiangsu Province, relevant leaders from companies such as Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Building Sciences Co., Ltd. and leaders from different departments such as the Provincial Department of Education, and many experts from colleges such as Hunan University and Chongqing University. Participants from our school included Mr. Yi Hong-President of our school, Mr. Hu Minqiang-Executive Vice-President, and Mr. Zheng Jiamao-Vice-President, personnel in charge of the relevant functional departments of SEU, and professors from relevant disciplines. Mr. Hu Minqiang presided over the ceremony.
The ceremony started with Mr. Yi Hong's address and then the academician Miu Changwen gave a report on the progress of the Center's establishment and formation. Later on, SEU successively signed the Center formation agreements with the collaborative universities and companies. SEU also signed with Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Building Sciences Co., Ltd., the agreements which allow them to jointly establish "Advanced Civil Engineering Materials Innovation Base".
Vice-Governor Cao Weixing unveiled the plague for the Center together with Mr. Yi Hong, and gave a speech at the ceremony, stressing that the Jiangsu provincial government will strongly support the establishment and construction of the Center.
It is reported that the Center after its completion will center around the greening of civil engineering materials, and try to meet the requirements of energy conservation, cycling and low-carbon, take as its mission the safety, health and long life of basic lifeline engineering. The Center intends to make a major breakthrough in the key technology of building the civil engineering materials that are environmentally-friendly, energy-saving, long-life, functional and intelligent.
After 4-8 years of operation, the Center anticipates the following effects: emissions per unit of output in the industry will be reduced by 30%, reduce energy consumption by 20%,collaboratively accommodate the safe disposal of the national solid waste by up to 50%, increase the life of concrete structures by 30 years. The Center hopes to help make a resource-saving and environment-friendly society and strives to make the overall ranking of the discipline among the top five internationally.
The development history of civil engineering materials research can be traced back to the 1920s, when the relevant disciplines of civil engineering materials of the Southeast University were on the first-class level in China and gathered a large number of cutting-edge talents such as academicians Sun Wei and Miu Changwen. At that time, SEU had a State Key Laboratory, 2 national engineering centers, six provincial and ministerial key laboratories and engineering research centers as well as five school-level scientific and technological innovation platforms and one academic SAR of SEU. All these laboratories and centers were once involved in the creation of quite a number of the world's top one projects such Sutong Bridge and the Three Gorges Dam.
