On March 16, the 2011 achievement report meeting and steering committee meeting of Tsinghua – Toshiba Energy Environment Research Center was held at Tsinghua University. Kang Kejun, Vice President of Tsinghua, Akira Sudo, CTO of Toshiba, Teruo Kiriyama, Toshiba Corporate Representative-China and over 60 research and technological staff from Tsinghua and Toshiba attended the meeting to report the year’s achievements. At the meeting, principal investigators gave a summary of their research progress and presented substantive results based on joint research projects on areas including smart grids, carbon dioxide capture, electric vehicles, and energy-saving algorithm for elevator. Additionally at the meeting the research background and major objectives of newly launched joint research projects were outlined, including battery technology for electric vehicles, human body thermal sensation features research, and Chinese information classification.
At the meeting, Kang Kejun and Akira Sudo both spoke highly of the close collaboration between Tsinghua and Toshiba. Kang Kejun said that the collaboration between Tsinghua and Toshiba is not only limited to R&D, but also emphasized that it extends to talent cultivation, through activities such as the setting up of student scholarships, and sponsoring student extra-curriculum research activities. The joint research center provides an effective platform to strengthen the collaboration between Tsinghua and Toshiba, to facilitate technology transfer, as well as to foster innovative researchers of Tsinghua and Toshiba. Mr. Sudo pointed out that energy and environment are the focus of attention of the international community, and especially after the earthquake in Japan in 2011, new challenges and demands on energy saving and environment protection have arisen. He hoped that the center could help to cultivate innovative ideas and solutions to meet the increasing demands of industrialization.
Tsinghua and Toshiba started their R&D collaboration in energy and environment areas in 2007. Since that time faculty and researchers from more ten departments and schools of Tsinghua University, including the departments of thermal engineering, electrical engineering, automotive engineering and the school of architecture, have been involved in joint research projects.
After the achievement report meeting, Jiang Xuepei, executive deputy director of the Office of Scientific R&D, Yao Qiang, executive deputy director of the Laboratory of Low Carbon Energy of Tsinghua University, and Ma Jun, Director of the Overseas R&D Management Office, attended the joint research center steering committee meeting.
