On the afternoon of July 1st, 2013, Inauguration Ceremony of UNAI (United Nation Academic Impact) Membership was held at the 3rd floor Meeting Hall of International Center, BNUZ. Mr. Maher Nasser,director of Outreach Division of UN Department of Public Information, Mr. Hasan Ferdous, deputy chief of United Nations Academic Impact, Prof. Chen Guangju, vice president of Beijing Normal University, Prof. Tu Qingyun, president of BNUZ, Prof. Fu Ailan, vice president of BNUZ, Dr. Dai Wei, vice chairperson of the University Council and so forth attended the ceremony.

On behalf of United Nations, Mr. Maher Nasser, Head of Outreach Division of UN Department of Public Information, awarded UNAI Membership Certificate to BNUZ. In his speech, Mr. Maher Nasser firstly congratulated BNUZ to be a member of UNAI,then spoke highly of BNUZ’s job in building a cross-culture platform for international students and promoting communication and understanding of different cultures. He expressed wishes for BNUZ to assume the honor and responsibility to be a UNAI member and further promote dialogue and understanding between different cultures around the world.

In the unveiling ceremony, Prof. Tu Qingyun, president of BNUZ,said by joining UNAI formally, BNUZ’s internationalization process has marched a great and firm step. At the same time, it also brings new opportunity for BNUZ’s international development.He also stressed on the point that BNUZ will live up to the expectations and by taking the chance of becoming a UNAI member, BNUZ would carry out more in-depth and extensive cooperation with overseas top universities on the basis of improving itself continuously in order to realize BNUZ’s development goals.

Then Mr. Maher Nasser, Mr. Hasan Ferdous and Prof. Chen Guangju, Prof. Tu Qingyun as well as Prof.Fu Ailan, Dr.Dai Wei unveiled the UNAI Membership tablet together.

United Nation Academic Impact is a global initiative that aligns institutions of higher education with the United Nations in actively supporting ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, literacy, sustainability and conflict resolution etc, to promote the idea of peace, cooperation and development.The formal launch of Academic Impact took place at the headquarter of United Nations in New York City on November 18, 2010 .Currently there are over 1000 universities and institutions of higher education have been approved to be the members. Among which, there are 40 members in the mainland of China and Hong Kong,Macao, Taiwan, including prestigious universities such as Peking University, Tsinghua University, Renmin University, Beijing Normal University, Hong Kong University, Chinese University of Hong Kong .

Since its establishment back to 11 years ago, BNUZ always makes internationalization the guideline of education innovation. It builds up cross-culture platform for international students by carrying out 2+2 program, summer overseas study program, International Chinese Studies, International Youth Leadership Program, NSLI-Y China(Zhuhai) Program etc. and set up Chinese Language and Culture Center in Portugal. Those programs aim to facilitate communication and understanding of different cultures and received highly recognition by United Nations, thus BNUZ was approved as a UNAI member by the UN.

Link to UNAI Website: http://academicimpact.org/index.php