President Zhang Jie presided over SJTU’s first online conference for high-level overseas talents at Minhang Campus, SJTU, and Munich, Germany at 5 pm Beijing Time (11 am Munich Time) on April 24. The online conference was held to strengthen the talent workforce construction at SJTU by bringing in qualified talents from overseas.

President Zhang Jie had scheduled to hold the face-to-face conferences in Berlin and Munich during his visit to Germany from April 19 to 24 at the invitation of Chinese Embassy and Consulate in Germany and related groups. However, the Icelandic volcano ash halted flights across Europe, impeding the visit. Considering the great significance of the conference in bringing in talents from abroad, as well as the strong will of the talents in Germany to join SJTU and serve the motherland, President Zhang Jie put forward the idea of an online conference, which was strongly approved by Chinese Consulate-general in Munich and Association of Chinese Students in Germany. The conference convened as scheduled.

In the conference, President Zhang Jie first introduced the history, present situation and expectations of SJTU, especially the talent strategy and the policy to bring in high qualified talents, and he also made the invitation for the talents abroad to join SJTU. Then the 26 attendees introduced themselves and expressed their wish to join SJTU.

Later, the talents in Germany asked several questions about the academic structure and development plan of SJTU, as well as their future development in China, which were answered by some professors who had been to Germany. In terms of sensitive questions, such as salary, housing and professional titles, President Zhang Jie gave answers in detail.

In the end, on behalf of Mr. Ma Jinsheng, the Consul General of Chinese Consulate-general in Munich, Mr. Dai Jiqiang expressed his heartfelt gratitude to President Zhang Jie and SJTU, and at the same time he said he was willing to build a platform for the communication between Chinese universities and qualified overseas talents, in order to meet the wishes of both.

The talents present at the conference felt that they had acquired a lot in the two and a half hours, with several reaching an agreement basically with SJTU. Further communication and discussion is expected. President Zhang Jie said that online meeting would become an important way of the work to bring in talents in SJTU, thus draw talents from abroad more economically and more conveniently, helping SJTU to become a world-class university.