Two universities open strategic research centers

Opening ceremony of the Macao Cultural Heritage Conservation and Development Research Centre at MUST

The Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST) and the City University of Macau (CityU) yesterday unveiled two research centers to foster academic progress, one in cultural heritage preservation and the other in Chinese culture.
Named the Macao Cultural Heritage Conservation and Development Research Centre, the MUST research entity is led by distinguished guest professor Meng Jian Min, who is also an academic of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
Under the leadership of Meng, the research facility will dedicate itself to sustainable artifact restoration techniques, architectural and urban landscape conservatory planning and design, as well as research on cultural heritage history, among other disciplines.
Meanwhile, the new facility will focus on the interactions between cultural heritage and social development across the Greater Bay Area in architecture, environmental and material science, urban and rural planning, design, landscape architecture, history, sociology, relic restoration, and more.
The research center has a team of professionals inside and outside of the Greater China Region.
Meng said that the preservation of cultural heritage is becoming more important in urban development. He foresees that the establishment of the research center will make significant contributions to the preservation of local cultural heritage sites.
Yesterday also saw the establishment of the Macao Chinese Cultural Research Institute at the CityU. Its operations will, according to Rector Jun Liu, “help deepen local students’ understanding [of] quality Chinese culture and tradition, [and] well present the ‘Macau Story’ and the ‘China Story’.”
One of the foremost missions of the research institute will be to develop knowledge in four main areas: humanity, technology, the economy and trade, as well as society generally. The institute will fund such endeavors as intercultural communications, Big Data and special financial services. AL