Background
Under NSF sponsorship, a delegation of leaders of major U.S. computer science (CS) academic institutions (mostly deans and department chairs) visited China from May 20 to June 3, 2006. The goals of the trip were to establish a dialogue between leaders of major U.S. and Chinese computer science departments, to enable the U.S. leaders to gain insight into current and future trends in information technology research in China, and lay the groundwork for potential future interactions. The delegation helped to organize and participated in the first U.S.-China Computer Science Leadership Summit, which was held on May 23, 2006 at Beihang University in Beijing. The Summit involved U.S. and Chinese colleagues in discussions of issues of common interest. The issues discussed included state of the art in education and research, Ph.D. training, CS faculty selection and retaining, evaluation of CS research and its impact, and the role of funding agencies and research centers. Before and after the Summit, the delegation visited Chinese universities and research laboratories. This visit successfully achieved our goal of "insightful understanding" of China's higher education and research in computer science and information technology, which is important to the leaders in U.S. universities and research institutions.
At the first Summit, U.S. and Chinese participants reached a consensus to repeat the event in the U.S. In its report to NSF, the U.S. delegation recommended that NSF should hold a follow-up Leadership Summit in the U.S. and then a subsequent follow-up activity in China, encourage the creation of a joint U.S./China steering committee to develop ideas for future collaborations, and encourage China to put together a delegation similar to ours that would visit U.S. universities.
Document last modified on June 27, 2011.