On the morning of April 13, Jean-Yves Roux, Consul General of France in Wuhan, and Nicolas Pillerel, Minister Counsellor for Culture, Education and Scientific Affairs, French Ambassador to China, and their party visited Wuhan University.

Taiyan Huang, CPC Secretary of Wuhan University, and Qizhu Tang, Vice President of Wuhan University, met with the guests.

The two sides signed a letter of intent for the cooperation of the French-China Digital Culture and Heritage Research Center, and unveiled the Center.

The unveiling ceremony was presided over by Xiaoshu Li, Director of the Office of International Affairs, Wuhan University.

In his speech, Taiyan Huang reviewed the fruitful achievements made by Wuhan University in the fields of talents education, scientific research, cultural exchange and so on during its cooperation with France for more than 40 years. He said that under the positive background that France and China jointly announced the resumption of humanities exchanges and emphasized the strengthening of bilateral cooperation in the field of cultural heritage protection, restoration and development, Wuhan University would give full play to the advantages of information management subject, pool the scientific research resources of the Intelligent Computing of Cultural Heritage Laboratory, and establish the French-China Digital Culture and Heritage Research Center in conjunction with the École Nationale des Chartes, which would surely become a new opportunity and new impetus to promote Wuhan University to restart comprehensive cooperation with France, and would also make new contributions to the educational and cultural exchanges between France and China.

Michelle Bubenicek, Professor and President of École Nationale des Chartes, delivered a speech by video. Bubenicek emphasized that under the cooperation framework of the French-China Digital Culture and Heritage Research Center, École Nationale des Chartes would continue to deepen its cooperation with the School of Information Management, the Intelligent Computing of Cultural Heritage, Philosophy and Social Sciences Laboratory of the Ministry of Education, and promote the research and utilization of French-China digital cultural heritage.

Jean-Yves Roux pointed out that the establishment of the French-China Digital Culture and Heritage Research Center by Wuhan University and École Nationale des Chartes on the basis of diversified, pragmatic and effective cooperation in the early stage has opened up a new path of cooperation. This would not only further strengthen the cooperation and trust between the two sides, but also greatly promote the pace of the resumption of scientific and educational cooperation between the two countries.

Nicolas Pillerel said that the French-China Digital Culture and Heritage Research Center of Wuhan University was one of the six French-China centers in China. This Center had a distinct theme, focused on culture and heritage, and integrated with the cutting-edge digital technology. With the close cooperation of both parties, mutual benefit and win-win would be achieved.

Yujue Wang, head of the French-China Digital Culture and Heritage Research Center, Professor at our School, introduced the early background of the construction of the Center, and said that the Center would focus on "appreciation, exchange and mutual learning" to promote the "beauty of both France and China" in the digital age and open up new flowers of communication.

Qizhu Tang and Nicolas Pillerel signed a letter of intent for cooperation on behalf of their institutions on the establishment of the French-China Digital Culture and Heritage Research Center.

Taiyan Huang and Jean-Yves Roux jointly unveiled the French-China Digital Culture and Heritage Research Center.

After the unveiling ceremony, the French delegation also visited the Intelligent Computing of Cultural Heritage, Philosophy and Social Sciences Laboratory of the Ministry of Education.

Heads of the School of Foreign Languages and Literature, the Intelligent Computing of Cultural Heritage, Philosophy and Social Sciences Laboratory of the Ministry of Education, the Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Office of International Affairs, and our School attended the event.

In order to further promote French-China cultural exchanges and educational cooperation, the French Embassy in China launched the call for Centre Franco-chinois projects in May 2022. The French-China Digital Culture and Heritage Research Center applied by Wuhan University in conjunction with École Nationale des Chartes stood out successfully from 18 application projects in China and was selected as the first batch of French-China centers in China.