Conference Venue

Huaqiao University is the first institution of higher education named after Huaqiao (Overseas Chinese). With the approval of former Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1960, it was established in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, famous as the hometown of overseas Chinese. In 1983, HQU was granted as one of China's Prioritized Fostered Universities by Chinese Central Government. In 1997, the Jimei Overseas Chinese Tutoring School, located in Jimei School Village, Xiamen, Fujian Province, was incorporated into the university and renamed as the Chinese Language and Culture College. In 2003, the university was qualified as "Excellent" by the Ministry of Education in its first Undergraduate Teaching Performance Assessment. In 2006, Xiamen Campus of the university was officially launched. In 2017, HQU was selected into the construction plan of world-class universities and world-class disciplines (also named as Double First-Class Initiative) of Fujian Province.

HQU is directly under the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, and jointly constructed by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, the Fujian Provincial People's Government, the Quanzhou Municipal Government and the Xiamen Municipal Government. As a comprehensive university, it is also one of the pioneer universities adopting the directorate system. The school board consists of overseas Chinese, compatriots from Hong Kong and Macao, overseas talents from various sectors and many other experts and leaders. Edmund Ho Hau-wah, the deputy chairman of CPPCC and the former chief executive of Macao SAR, served as the Board's honorary chairman. China’s state leaders Liao Chengzhi and Ye Fei, were respectively the first and the second president of Huaqiao University. The incumbent president, Xu Xipeng, has been listed as the Leading Talents in the National High-level Talents Special Support Plan (Ten Thousand Plan) and awarded the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars.

Dedicated to recruiting students from abroad, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, HQU aims to serve the overseas Chinese and spread Chinese culture, committing itself to the school principle of Integration of Chinese Wisdom and Foreign Expertise, Unification of Moral Character and Professional Excellence. Over 200,000 students of all levels have graduated from the university since its establishment, among which around 50,000 currently live overseas, mainly distributed in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and countries or regions along the Maritime Silk Road, and have become friendship envoy in promoting communication and cooperation between China and those countries.

HQU currently has 28 colleges with 94 undergraduate programs, among which 10 have achieved the engineering education certification. There are 27 Master's programs of the first-level disciplines, 2 Master's programs of the second-level disciplines and 20 professional Master's programs, together with 8 Doctoral programs of the first-level disciplines, 2 Doctoral programs of the second-level disciplines and 5 Post-doctoral research centers in the university. The university offers 12 discipline categories including Philosophy, Economics, Law, Education, Literature, History, Science, Engineering, Agriculture, Medicine, Management and Arts, forming a coordinately developed discipline system that combines arts with science, integrates science with engineering and couples engineering with management. Steady progress has been made in its research strength, with 41 state or provincial key disciplines and 17 provincial peak and plateau disciplines, among which Engineering, Material Science and Chemistry rank among the top one-percent in ESI (Essential Science Indicators). In December 2017, 16 first-level disciplines were listed in the Assessments of National Academic Disciplines released by the Ministry of Education. In 2018, the university ranked 28th in the comprehensive universities list of Shanghai Ranking's Best Chinese Universities Ranking 2018 and 86th among its general list. Shanghai Ranking's Best Chinese Universities Ranking 2018 includes 4,999 disciplines from 460 universities in the Chinese mainland, among which 93 are first-level disciplines. Compared with 19 disciplines in 2017, 20 of HQU have been listed in 2018, which ranked 83rd among the list.