From May 20 to 24, Yu Jihong, President of Beijing Normal University (BNU), led a delegation to the United Kingdom. The delegation visited the University of Manchester, the University of Nottingham, the University of Bath, University College London, the University of Oxford, met with the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and hosted a symposium with local UK alumni. Representatives from BNU's College of Chemistry, School of Systems Science, Office of Development and Planning, Provost‘s Office and Academic Affairs(Graduate School), and Office of International Exchange and Cooperation accompanied the president. Discussions focused on consolidating existing partnerships, leveraging elite academic resources, and exploring joint education and collaborative research, yielding substantial outcomes.

The delegation first visited the University of Manchester, where they held talks with Vice President Fiona Devine and heads of departments including Humanities, Science and Engineering, and International Development. Both sides fully affirmed the achievements made over the years in student exchanges, joint talent cultivation, and the construction of Confucius Institutes. They also had in-depth consultations on issues such as basic research, applied research, educational innovation, and interdisciplinary talent cultivation, and reached a consensus on continuously deepening cooperation. Yu Jihong presented University of Manchester with a traditional Chinese painting created by a BNU student as a symbol of friendship.

The delegation also paid a special visit to the Confucius Institute at the University of Manchester. Established through a partnership between BNU and the University of Manchester, the Institute is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Yu Jihong extended warm regards to the faculty and students from BNU who have been dispatched to work at the Institute, and fully recognized their important role in promoting cooperation between the two universities and advancing educational and cultural exchanges between China and the United Kingdom.

At the University of Nottingham, Yu Jihong signed a university-level framework cooperation agreement with the president, Jane Norman. Both sides reached a consensus on cooperation in basic disciplines as well as interdisciplinary fields such as brain science and mental health, climate change and food security, and healthy aging. They also had in-depth exchanges on issues such as students' overseas education internships and promoting the development of local education in Africa through the trilateral cooperation mechanism among China, the UK and Africa.

Yu Jihong presented the visiting professor appointments at BNU to Professor Christopher Day and Professor Juliet Thondhlana, two internationally renowned scholars.

At the University of Bath, Yu Jihong signed a university-level framework cooperation agreement with President Phil Taylor. They thoroughly discussed establishing a regular mechanism for communication between teachers and students and co-founding a "Grand Health" Joint Research Center.

The delegation also toured simultaneous interpretation laboratory at the University of Bath, agreeing to strengthen cooperation in interpretation training and linguistic exchange. 

At the University College London, Yu Jihong met with President Michael Spence. The two sides reviewed the cooperation achievements in education, psychology and student exchanges, and reached a consensus on further deepening research cooperation in basic disciplines and major interdisciplinary fields, strengthening mutual visits between teachers and students, and exploring a joint training model for outstanding teachers. On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of University College London, Yu Jihong presented a traditional Chinese painting by a student to the school to express her best wishes.

Later, Yu Jihong met with Li Wei, Dean of the Faculty of Education at University College London and an alumnus of Beijing Normal University, to discuss BNU's Excellence Teacher Program and expressed hope that collaboration with UCL would enhance students' global competencies.

At the University of Oxford, Yu Jihong met with the president, Irene Tracey. The two sides had in-depth discussions on topics such as cross-cultural communication, interdisciplinary research, and teacher-student exchanges. They highly affirmed the outstanding contributions made by the jointly established Mo Yan International Writing Center in enhancing communication between teachers and students of the two universities and cultivating young literary talents for the world.

During the visit, Yu Jihong also met with Paul Nurse, the president of the Royal Society of the United Kingdom and the Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine. She introduced the research progress of BNU in the fields of life science, brain science, etc., and sincerely invited him to give lectures at BNU. Nurse expressed his anticipation of visiting BNU and communicating with faculty and students.

The delegation also visited the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and Ambassador Zheng Zeguang met with the delegation. Zheng Zeguang recognized BNU's contributions to China-UK educational exchanges, pledging the embassy's full support for BNU's substantive academic partnerships with British universities. Yu Jihong introduced the cooperation between the university and British universities, the goals of this visit and the phased achievements. She pointed that BNU will continue to uphold the concept of open cooperation, deeply explore cooperation potential, enrich cooperation forms, steadily promote the implementation of various cooperation projects, and take educational exchanges as a bond to continuously enhance the friendship between the people of the two countries.

Yu Jihong specially visited the alumni of BNU in the UK, held a discussion with representatives of the alumni, and detailedly introduced the development achievements and future plans of the university in recent years in terms of talent cultivation, discipline construction, scientific research innovation, and international exchanges. She also warmly welcomed the alumni to return to their Alma mater frequently. Alumni expressed that they would always keep their Alma mater in mind, actively build communication Bridges, assist the school in deepening exchanges and cooperation with the UK, and fully support the high-quality development of all the school's undertakings.

This visit has reinforced BNU's partnerships with UK universities, expanded the scope of cooperation, and injected fresh momentum  into the university's deepening of high-level opening up of education and improvement of internationalized educational standards.

(The authors of the traditional Chinese paintings presented this time are Li Fangfei, an undergraduate student of the 2022 grade, Wang Jiaran, an undergraduate student of the 2023 grade, and Qiu Xinran, a postgraduate student of the 2025 grade from the School of Art and Media, Beijing Normal University.)