More than 90 university leaders from 42 ASEM member countries have confirmed their participation in the 4th ASEM Rectors’ Conference (ARC4) that will be held on 26-27 March 2015 in Hangzhou, China. ARC is likely to have the largest attendance since it first started 7 years ago.
ARC4 will bring in a few ASEM member countries, which have not participated before in this high-level Asia-Europe platform for education policy dialogue, including Bangladesh, Cyprus, Lao PDR, Malta, the Russian Federation and Switzerland. The two newest ASEM member countries, Croatia and Kazakhstan, will also be represented by the Presidents of the countries’ top universities.
Ms Marite SEILE, Minister of Education and Science of Latvia will attend ARC4 to receive the policy recommendations jointly developed by the participants for the 5th ASEM Education Ministers’ Meeting (ASEM ME5), which will take place on 27-28 April 2015 in Riga.
Themed “University-Business Partnerships: Asia and Europe Seeking 21st Century Solutions”, ARC4 will address how universities and the business sector can build innovative partnerships in response to emerging socio-economic challenges, particularly youth employment, the need for entrepreneurship and new learning environments through information and communication technologies.
In conjunction with ARC4, a Students’ Forum will take place on 23-24 March 2015 in the same venue. It will gather promising students from all 51 ASEM countries to discuss the same topics as the Rectors’ Conference. The youth perspectives and suggestions will be presented face-to-face to the Rectors by selected student representatives. Through an Open Call launched in late December 2014, the Students’ Forum received over 2,400 applications, out of which one student from each ASEM member country has been selected.
Hosted by Zhejiang University, ARC4 and ARC4 Students’ Forum are co-organised by the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. The International Association of Universities (IAU) and the ASEAN University Network (AUN) contribute as ARC4 partners, and Chulalongkorn University & the Office of Higher Education Commission (OHEC) of Thailand as supporters.