Event Introduction

The 2023 China-Europe (Wuxi) Industrial Innovation Cooperation Conference was held on November 8-9, with the theme of "Deepening China-Europe Cooperation for Mutual Benefit and Win-Win Results." The conference aimed to focus on cutting-edge European technologies, strategic emerging industries, and high-quality high-end projects, further consolidating and deepening Wuxi's cooperation relationship with Europe, and expanding the scale and capabilities of the local EU industrial cluster in Wuxi.

The conference comprises four events: the China-Europe Vaccine Industry International Cooperation Forum, the China-Europe Industrial Innovation High-quality Development Roundtable, the China-Europe SME Business Negotiation Meeting, and the China-Europe (Wuxi) Vocational Education Forum.

The EU Project Innovation Center invited a total of 71 heavyweight guests from 15 countries, including Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Poland, and others.

Among the sub-events of the summit, the "China-Europe Vaccine Industry Forum" invited over a dozen top European experts, including Stephan Jungbluth, Director of the International Department of the European Vaccine Initiative (EVI), Irina Mehlhorn, Director of the Innovation Department, Eric Westhof, Academician of the French and German Academies of Sciences, and Eric Le Roy, Academician of the French National Academy of Medicine, to share research and development achievements and explore collaborative innovation around cutting-edge hotspots in the vaccine field with well-known experts and industry elites in China's vaccine industry, providing a new global perspective for the international collaborative development of the vaccine industry.

The Sino-Europe Industrial Innovation Roundtable held during the summit focused on the theme of "High-quality Development of Sino-Europe Industrial Innovation Zones," with extensive discussions and in-depth exchanges centering on key areas such as technological innovation, project construction, green and low-carbon initiatives, digital economy, and business environment. The Center invited 20 prominent leaders from European industrial cluster organizations, including Markus Boger, President of the Federation of European Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (FESME), Pietro Martino, Vice President of the European Business and Innovation Center (EBN), Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IITB), German Advanced Materials Cluster, and the Danish CleanTech Cluster, to participate in the event.

The Sino-Europe Vocational Education Forum invited 22 distinguished guests from the European vocational education field, including Theodoros Grassos, Secretary-General of the European Vocational Education and Training Alliance (EVETA), to participate. The forum set up topics such as "Vocational Education Cooperation under the New Trend of Internationalization" and "Integration of Industry and Education to Promote Talent Cultivation and Employment," as well as a roundtable dialogue with the theme of "Industry-Guided Innovation and Development of Vocational Education." During the forum, the "TOURX Tourism Vocational Education Excellence Center" project, approved by the European Commission, was unveiled for the first time, with both Chinese and foreign parties witnessing the occasion and working together to build a sustainable EU vocational education brand in Wuxi through international cooperation in vocational education.

The center facilitated the establishment of China's first "China-EU Vaccine R&D and Industrial Cooperation Center" in Wuxi, which will use the high-tech zone as a cooperation base to help Wuxi seize the commanding heights of future biomedical development and enhance the scale and technological upgrading of Wuxi's vaccine biotechnology industry.

In addition, the center organized 81 one-on-one project matchmaking negotiations for participating Chinese and European enterprises, reaching 72 cooperation intentions in fields such as biopharmaceuticals, new materials, and smart manufacturing.

In the future, the EU Project Innovation Center will further promote cooperation between the high-tech zone and European countries in talents, projects, capital, and other areas, providing support for the construction of the Wuxi China-EU Industrial Innovation Zone.