President of Queen’s University, Professor Peter Gregson pointed out in the ceremony that President Zhang Jie was awarded this honor because he is a well-known scientist in the world and a great leader of an internationally prestigious university. President Gregson said, as a physicist, President Zhang Jie devoted himself into challenging exploration in the fields of X-ray, high energy physics, laser and so on, made outstanding academic achievements and won many important academic awards and honors. Besides, President Zhang Jie is an excellent leader in nurturing best young students in China. In November 2006, Zhang Jie became the second youngest president during the 114-year history of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Being such a leader of far sight, he is making unremitting efforts to improve the quality of China’s higher education with a strong belief in that science and education is the key to guarantee the boom of China’s social and academic development. He commits himself to the construction of campus culture driven by dream and passion. In the world which seems to be smaller and smaller, he fully realizes the responsibility of a university. In order to gain a better future, President Zhang Jie put forward strategic plans with an emphasis on attracting and nurturing talents to build a world-class research and teaching group.

In the end, President Gregson stated that Queen’s University and SJTU had common belief and goals. This has been reflected by the two parties’ close cooperation including the cooperation between Professor Zhang Jie himself and the colleagues from School of Math and Physics of Queen’s University which can be traced back to the early 1990s when Professor Zhang Jie was working at Oxford University. Both Queen’s University and SJTU totally agree that cross-border sharing of knowledge and technology is of great significance. The present cooperation between two parties are mainly cooperative research, co-application of projects and programs, co-organization of conferences, and co-publication of papers, which will be continuously furthered and developed to bring benefits to both countries’ economy and people’s life.