On July 3rd, 2023, the 7th Sino-European Symposium on Functional Pavement CEW2023 opened in Birmingham, UK. The conference was co-organized by Aston University and Nottingham University in the UK, with Southeast University as a co-organizer. Our school sent a group of 9 professors and many students to participate. Professor Yang Jun from Road and Railway Engineering served as a member of the conference advisory committee, Professor Chen Xianhua served as a member of the executive committee, Professor Zhang Yuqing served as the chairman of the organizing committee, and Professor Ma Tao served as a member of the organizing committee.
On the morning of July 3rd, Professor Gordon Airey from the University of Nottingham and Professor Stephen Garrett from Aston University, on behalf of the conference, delivered welcome speeches, summarizing and reviewing the development history of the Sino-European Symposium on Functional Pavement and fully recognizing the conference's contributions to the international road engineering field. Subsequently, Professor Markus Oeser from the Federal Highway Research Institute in Germany, Professor Linbing Wang from the University of Georgia in the United States, and Professor Andrew Dawson from the University of Nottingham in the UK gave keynote speeches. From July 3rd to 4th, the conference held 10 parallel sessions both online and offline, covering cutting-edge research topics such as pavement material performance evaluation, pavement multi-scale simulation, functional pavement technology, digital twins, and deep learning technology applications in road engineering. Professor Ma Tao, Professor Wang Shengle, Professor Yang Jun, Professor Chen Xianhua, Associate Researcher Wang Qi, and Associate Researcher Jiang Ji-wang made presentations at the conference. The Sino-European Symposium on Functional Pavement was jointly launched by Southeast University and RWTH Aachen University in Germany, held every two years, with the first conference held at Southeast University in September 2010. This conference was the 7th in the series, attended by more than 100 representatives from China, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, and other countries.
The conference has become an important international academic event in the road transportation industry, with significant international influence in the field of road engineering. It is of great significance for promoting academic exchanges in the field of road engineering between China and Europe, and for promoting the sustainable development of domestic transportation infrastructure, road safety, and technological innovation in pavement functionality.
After the conference, representatives from the School of Transportation at Southeast University and the School of Engineering at Aston University held discussions on interdisciplinary teaching system design, international exchange and cooperation, curriculum setting, and student employability, and explored prospects for and discussed cooperation between Aston University and Southeast University. They also conducted research and exchanges on laboratory and research platform construction at the School of Engineering at the University of Nottingham. The seminar provided beneficial inspiration and experience for the innovation of the talent training program and the management improvement of laboratory construction, laying the foundation for deepening international exchange and cooperation between the two universities.
