On the morning of April 21, 2025, Zhao Yi, General Manager of PollyPolymer, and He Qifeng, Head of the Northwest Region, visited QMES to conduct research and engage in discussions on advancing industry-academia collaboration and exploring mechanisms for collaborative education. Wang Yongxin, Vice Dean of QMES, and Ding Jing, Teaching Practice Officer, attended the exchange seminar, which was chaired by Wang Yongxin.
Firstly, Wang Yongxin, on behalf of QMES, delivered a welcome speech and expressed sincere gratitude for the visit of the company representatives. Following this, He Qifeng, Head of the Northwest Region for PollyPolymer, provided an overview of the company’s development in the large-scale application of 3D printing. He highlighted that the company follows a product-demand-driven approach to equipment development, having established strong industrial capabilities in sectors such as footwear, helmets, automotive parts, and dental healthcare. The company has also set up industrial parks in multiple regions and boasts a comprehensive technology transfer and production system. He emphasised that the company attaches great importance to industry-academia collaboration and looks forward to establishing long-term and in-depth partnerships with QMES in areas such as talent development, internships, and research cooperation.
Next, Wang Yongxin, drawing on the distinctive background of QMES’s Chinese-foreign cooperative education model, introduced the recent achievements in programme development, student practical teaching systems, and international collaborative education. He further shared the QMES’s plans for the development of materials-related programmes, particularly in the area of industry-education integration. These plans include a “task-driven” approach to curriculum reform, the exploration of training mechanisms aimed at enhancing students’ engineering capabilities, and the creation of an innovative practical framework that connects project design to product manufacturing in newly established programmes. QMES aims to strengthen the alignment between teaching content and real-world industry projects, promoting student engagement in design, validation, and optimisation within authentic scenarios, and gradually establishing a practical training system that is closely aligned with industry demands.
During the free exchange session, Zhao Yi expressed that PollyPolymer is keen to actively participate in the development of practical education systems at universities. By leveraging resources from industrial parks in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, and Wuhu, Anhui Province, the company aims to provide students with platforms for hands-on internships and project collaboration, fostering deeper integration between universities and enterprises in education process. Additionally, the company hopes to leverage the research capabilities of universities to drive the iterative upgrading of its civilian technologies, expand application scenarios in fields such as new materials and new processes, and support the company’s technological transformation and product innovation. PollyPolymer also looks forward to engaging in diversified cooperation with QMES in areas such as art design and the co-development of teaching resources, promoting interdisciplinary collaboration and the integration of industry and education. The company aims to establish a cross-disciplinary collaborative education mechanism and views this exchange as an opportunity to further expand the scope of cooperation, achieving resource sharing and system-wide synergy.
Finally, both parties engaged in in-depth discussions on topics such as “streamlining the talent development chain, forming joint teams to address practical business challenges, promoting international collaboration, and building a technological support system”. Preliminary agreements on several cooperation intentions were reached.
This research exchange has laid a solid foundation for in-depth cooperation between QMES and PollyPolymer in areas such as practical education, scientific research collaboration, and the integration of industry and education. QMES will continue to align its efforts with national strategies and regional economic development, actively engaging with the development direction of “specialised, refined, distinctive, and innovative” enterprises. Focusing on cutting-edge fields such as new materials and intelligent manufacturing, QMES will expand its collaborative education model, strengthening the integration of the education chain with the industrial and innovation chains. In response to the new challenges brought about by industrial transformation and technological iteration, QMES will deepen university-enterprise collaboration, joint mechanism development, and resource sharing, aiming to build an open, flexible, and mutually beneficial long-term cooperation mechanism between universities and enterprises. This will continuously enhance the quality of the engineering education system and provide strong support for the cultivation of new productive forces and technology-driven innovation.
Text: Ding Jing
Editor: Zhang Hanen and Chen Xinyan
Translator: Shen Xinyi
Reviewer: Wang Yongxin
