During the Mengqiu season, the 10th Anniversary Conference and Cooperation Forum of the “Belt and Road” University Alliance was recently held in Dunhuang, Gansu Province. This is one of the activities of the 2025 Dunhuang Forum. At the forum, nearly 200 experts and scholars from more than 20 countries, including Russia, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan, gathered together to review their journey in the past ten years.

The “circle of friends” of university alliances continues to expand

In 2015, under the initiative and promotion of the Gansu Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government, Lanzhou University and 47 universities from 8 countries and regions jointly issued the "Dunhuang Consensus" and initiated the establishment of the "Belt and Road" University Alliance, starting the exploration of jointly building a higher education community.

As the alliance’s secretary-general unit, Lanzhou University adheres to the concept of “co-construction, sharing, and serving the overall situation” and promotes the continued expansion of the alliance’s “circle of friends.” At this forum, with the signing of alliance agreements with many new member universities such as the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria, the alliance has covered 197 universities in 27 countries and regions around the world, forming an extensive cooperation network.

After ten years of hard work, the “Belt and Road” educational cooperation has formed five dazzling golden business cards: higher education, vocational education, teacher education, digital education, and student exchanges.

At the forum that day, Mushtaq Ahmed, academician of the Academy of Sciences of Developing Countries, academician of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences, and professor of Jinnah University in Pakistan, pointed out in his speech that the “Belt and Road” University Alliance has proven to the world that knowledge can be the most powerful force for peace, prosperity and sustainable development.

"The joint construction of the 'Belt and Road' initiative is not only about trade routes and infrastructure construction, but also about building bridges between people, cultures and cultures, and universities and universities." Amr Ezzat Salama, Secretary-General of the Arab Universities Association, emphasized in a video speech.

Promoted more than 10 key technologies to go abroad

During the awards ceremony of the forum, Lanzhou University professors Long Ruijun and Xiong Youcai won the Outstanding Contribution Awards for Ecological Cooperation and Sustainable Development, and Agricultural Development and Technical Cooperation respectively.

"Promoting technology projects in countries that jointly build the 'Belt and Road' must not simply 'copy and paste'. We must respect scientific laws and local realities, and complete local transformation through a large number of practices and experiments." Xiong Youcai, a professor at Lanzhou University and a foreign academician of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences, said. He introduced that the dryland rain-fed agricultural technology promoted by Lanzhou University has the advantages of low input, high yield, simple operation and environmental friendliness, and has been widely promoted and demonstrated in Pakistan, Kenya, Ethiopia and other countries.

His student Willie is from Kenya and worked hard to learn furrow mulching technology while studying abroad. “I want to bring LU’s technology back to my hometown and bring changes to Kenya,” Willie said. Over the past ten years, international students from 101 countries have come to Lanzhou University for further study, 93% of whom are from countries co-building the “Belt and Road”. They are becoming an important force in promoting local development.

In the mountainous area of ​​northern Pakistan, Long Ruijun, deputy director and professor of Lanzhou University's "One Belt, One Road" Research Center, introduced the Gansu Solar Pump to local partners and successfully diverted river water to terraced farmland dozens of meters high, solving the irrigation problem.

"Gansu is similar to parts of Central Asia and South Asia in terms of climate and topography, and can carry out technical exchanges and industrial cooperation around the photovoltaic industry, mountain ecological agriculture and animal husbandry and other fields," Long Ruijun said. The "Smart Agriculture Center" jointly built by Lanzhou University and Kazakhstan State Agricultural University has been included in the list of outcomes of the China-Kazakhstan heads of state meeting. Based on the center, the two universities will contribute to regional food security and sustainable development.

At present, Lanzhou University and its alliance universities have deployed and built 45 international scientific and technological cooperation research bases in the fields of ecology and environment, life and health, and promoted more than 10 key technologies such as water-saving irrigation and ecological restoration.

Join hands to build a sustainable higher education community

With the theme of "Ten Years of Collaboration, Intelligent Creation of the Future—Joining a New Chapter of the Belt and Road Education Community", this forum simultaneously held five sub-forums including new energy and carbon neutrality initiatives.

In the sub-forum "Mutual Learning of Silk Road Civilizations and the Development of International Chinese Education in the Digital Intelligence Era", Professor Li Lifang, Dean and Professor of the School of Liberal Arts of Lanzhou University, demonstrated the interactive network platform for children's reading that is under construction.

"Children's literature is an excellent carrier to promote people-to-people connections. As overseas Chinese learners become younger, we need to provide educational products that are suitable for children's physical and mental characteristics and are willing to accept them." Li Lifang said that the project uses modern means such as digital technology and artificial intelligence to integrate audio, video, real-time interaction and other elements into high-quality original Chinese children's literature resources to promote a comprehensive upgrade of international Chinese education children's literature reading and learning experience.

In recent years, Lanzhou University has trained 207 international Chinese education talents for the countries co-building the “Belt and Road”, many of whom have become local Chinese teachers; it has sent 547 students to overseas internships, conducted Chinese courses and theatrical performances, and deepened the friendship with the people of the countries co-building it.

"In the past ten years, this higher education cooperation platform with the mission of connecting people and cultivating talents has grown from scratch, grown from small to large, and has become a key force in promoting international educational cooperation, scientific research collaboration and cultural mutual learning." said Chi Gang, director of the International Cooperation and Exchange Office of Lanzhou University.

At the new starting point of the second decade, the forum released the "Belt and Road" University Alliance 2025 "Dunhuang Consensus". The consensus states that the alliance will actively promote pragmatic cooperation in cutting-edge fields such as digital education, artificial intelligence empowerment, key scientific and technological research, high-level talent training and mutual learning among diverse civilizations, and work together to build a resilient and sustainable higher education community.

"Facing the future, Lanzhou University is willing to work with all member universities to jointly promote the transformation of the alliance from expansion to quality improvement, from formation to empowerment, and from symbiosis to co-prosperity with a more open attitude, a more innovative spirit, and more pragmatic actions, and make new and greater contributions to building a community with a shared future for mankind." said Ma Xiaojie, Secretary of the Party Committee of Lanzhou University. (Reporter Wang Bingya Shangjie)