Prof. Johan De Graeve, President and Chief Executive of Group T, received an honorary doctorate from the State Council Academic Degrees Committee of China at Beijing Jiaotong University—one of Group T’s first partner universities in China—on December 24, 2009.
The title was bestowed on him for his special services in the field of education innovation and international collaboration between Belgium and China. The review committee praised the laureate for the development and implementation of innovative engineering curricula based on the 5E-model of Engineering, Enterprising, Educating, Environmenting, and Ensembling. This model was also the subject of his academic presentation.
Other speakers during the ceremony were Prof. Ning Bin, President of Beijing Jiaotong University, Vice President Chen Feng, and Prof. Gu Mingyuan, who acted as supervisor. The doctorate was handed over by Vice President Wang Yongsheng, Chairman of the Academic Committee at Beijing Jiaotong University.
An honorable mention was also given for promoting international education in Belgium and in China as well as for establishing the International Joint Engineering Programs in cooperation with an extensive network of Chinese partner universities. The same is true for founding the Hongzhi Engineering Scholarship that offers the opportunity to talented Chinese students from rural areas to study at Group T.
The committee also values Prof. De Graeve’s efforts to promote the Chinese language and culture as the Chairman of the Confucius Institute at Group T, the only one of its kind in Flanders. Incidentally, since 2006, the new honorary doctor has held the position of Senior Consultant at the Office of Chinese Language Council International (Hanban), which is the global coordinator for the Confucius Institutes. Since 2008 he has also held the position of Vice-Chairman of the Special Working Committee for Human Resources Promotion at the Confucius Institute Headquarters in Beijing.
Furthermore, the collaboration with an increasing number of partner universities in the Greater Mekong Subregion in Southeast Asia has played an important role. And finally, the committee greatly appreciates Prof. De Graeve’s work for UNESCO as the Co-Chairholder of the UNESCO Chair on Cooperation between Engineering, Education and Industries in Beijing and as the Vice-Chairman of the Flemish UNESCO Commission.
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