"China Engineering Management Forum 2010" and the Celebration of the Tenth Anniversary of the Founding of the Engineering Management Academic Division of CAE Held in Beijing

"China Engineering Management Forum 2010" and the Celebration of the tenth anniver-sary of the founding of the Engineering Man-agement Academic Division of CAE was held in October in Beijing.

The celebration was hosted by the Chinese Academy of Engineering, operated by the En-gineering Management Academic Division of CAE, co-organized by China Coal Energy Corporation Limited and Central South Uni-versity, which also received warm support from a number of institutions of higher learning, en-terprises and government departments.

Present in the celebration were Mr. Xu Kuangdi, Vice Chairman of the Tenth CPPCC National Com-mittee, also Honorary Chairman of the Fifth Governing Board of CAE, Mr. Zhou Ji, Presi-dent of CAE, Mr. Pan Yunhe, Executive Vice President of CAE, Mr. Xu Rigan, Xie Kechang, Gan Yong and Fang Daiming, Vice Presidents of CAE, Mr.

Zhang Laiwu, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Mr. Feng Changgen, Secretary of China Asso-ciation for Science and Technology, a total of 35 Members from the Engineering Management Academic Division of CAE, including the Academic Division Director Mr. Wang Jiming, Mr. Fu Chengyu, General Manager of China National Offshore Oil Corporation and other leaders from relevant enterprises, CAE Member Zhong Denghua, Vice President of Tianjin University, and other representatives of the education sector.

Another nearly 200 experts and scholars who are engaged in, concerned about, and supportive of the engineering man-agement cause in China also attended the cele-bration.

The opening ceremony was presided over by CAE Vice President Fan Daiming, also the Chairman of the Celebration Assembly. CAE Member Wang Jiming, Director of the Engi-neering Management Academic Division of CAE, made the opening speech first of all. CAE President Zhou Ji and Former President Xu Kuangdi, also Vice Chairman of the Tenth CPPCC National Committee delivered impor-tant speeches. CAE Member Yin Ruiyu intro-duced the process of growth of the Engineering Management Academic Division for the past decade, on behalf of the Engineering Manage-ment Academic Division of CAE.

In his opening speech, Director Wang Jiming reviewed and introduced the general situation of China Engineering Management Forum and its positive effects, who also briefly summarized the work of the Engineering Man-agement Academic Division in the past ten years. He said that all the achievements in the work of the Engineering Management Aca-demic Division couldn t be made without the wise leadership of successive leaders of CAE, without the help and support of other fellow Academic Divisions and the joint efforts of all the members of the Engineering Management Academic Division.

Wang also said that the Engineering Management Academic Division will continue to center its work on the priori-tized work of the CAE under the leadership of the Academy, taking it as an important goal to provide scientific and technological grounds for the acceleration of the transformation of eco-nomic development pattern, bravely shoulder-ing the heavy responsibilities, thus making its contributions for the construction of an innova-tive country and the promotion of sound and fast economic and social development.

Finally, Wang expressed an earnest hope that all CAE leaders, new and old, and all fellow experts and scholars specialized in the field of engineering management continue to give attention to and provide guidance for the Engineering Man-agement Academic Division.

In President Zhou Ji s speech, he sang high praise for the work of the Engineering Management Academic Division in the past ten years since its establishment, who also stressed on the significance of holding the China Engi-neering Management Forum. In addition, Zhou made three instructions for the future develop-ment of engineering management: firstly, ef-forts should be made to conscientiously sum up the valuable experiences obtained in the past ten years, with focus on the overall situation of national construction, in order to better fulfill the function of playing an important role in the construction of the national engineering tech-nology think tank in the future.

Secondly, we should further strengthen academician team construction, and help make members of the Engineering Management Academic Division play leading roles in the field of engineering management in China. Thirdly, great endeavors should be made to promote the integration of the theory and practice of the engineering management, so as to not only gradually form a theoretical framework of engineering manage-ment, but also effectively solve the major management problems in existence of the con-struction of our country, as well as actively cul-tivate a large number of innovative engineering management personnel.

Mr. Xu Kuangdi, former President of CAE, explained an important concept of "Engineering Needs Management" from the perspective of historical development and the needs in modernization construction, which, as a matter of fact, specified the strategic direction for the future development of engineering management in China.

Xu also pointed out that in a big engineering country like China, the engineering management level will directly determine whether the project design is reasonable enough, whether the quality and efficiency is good enough, whether the expected goal of the project could be achieved, and ultimately, whether the project is a success or failure.

Since these construction projects are directly related to the transforma-tion of the pattern of economic development of our country, they are directly related to the realization of China's new road to industrializa-tion and the realization of the objective of building a moderately prosperous society.

Xu finally expressed his hope that the engineering management discipline should play a more significant role in the great revival of China.

Mr. Song Jian, former State councilor, also former Vice-Chairman of CPPCC and former President of CAE, sent a congratulatory mes-sage from Russia on this special occasion. Mr. Pan Jiazheng, former Vice President of CAE, who has done a lot of work for and great con-tributions to the establishment of the Engineer-ing Management Academic Division, extended his warm congratulations on the successful commencement of the celebration, who couldn t make his way to it due to a business trip.

In the one and half day academic ex-change activities on the Engineering Manage-ment Forum, a number of academicians and engineering management leaders of major en-gineering projects gave presentations to the whole forum. Besides, the forum, themed "Scientific Development and Engineering Management", was divided into four sub-forums centered on "Technology Theory and Standards of Engineering Management", "Industrial Engineering Management", "Urba-nization and Real Estate" and "Engineering Philosophy and Engineering Management Education" respectively, in which experts of relevant interest and specialized knowledge exchanged viewpoints extensively.

Attendees of the forum took quite active part in all academic exchanges organized, sharing their understanding of and thoughts on engineering management in China, which made the forum a wonderful platform on which people from all walks of life exchange their views concerning engineering management in our nation. With the forum getting increasingly innovative and passionate, it has made both the organizers and the whole academic world see the value and significance of the forum more clearly, which in turn makes people full of ex-pectation towards the next forum.

This forum, with Scientific Development and Engineering Management as its theme, called for papers in the preparatory stage and received quite warm response. A total of 253 relevant papers were received afterwards, from which 40 were selected into a journal entitled Scientific and Technological Progress and Countermeasures , with another 127 papers making their way to Proceedings of China Engineering Management Forum 2010 after being assessed.

The assessment and selection was done by a special forum academic com-mittee of experts in a careful, rigorous and ob-jective manner. Authors of those selected pa-pers come from various professional back-grounds, such as railway, petroleum, petro-chemical industry, steel, aviation, transportation, agriculture, irrigation, thermal power, army, urban construction, institutions of higher learn-ing, etc.

There are also authors from Hong Kong and Taiwan of China. Contributions from other countries like the United States and Aus-tralia have been received.

On the afternoon of October 11, a fellow-ship meeting was also held by the Engineering Management Academic Division, which was presided over by CAE Member Wang Liheng, former Director of the Academic Division, at-tended by President Zhou Ji and Vice President Fan Daiming, among many others. Members gathered together and looked back on the de-velopment of the Division over the past decade, who also made valuable comments and sugges-tions regarding future work and the direction for development of the Division.

(By Yu Zehua, October 2010; translated by Liu Chang)