On the morning of May 27, a delegation from the University of Minnesota, led by its president, Eric W. Kaler, visited XJTU. President Wang Shuguo met with the delegation in room 107 of the Science Hall. Vice President Lu Tianjian and academician Tao Wenquan attended the meeting.

President Wang welcomed President Kaler and his party and said he hoped that the two universities would strengthen substantial cooperation in talent training and research, upgrade international education and better perform the social responsibility of training high-quality talents and bring benefit to social development. President Kaler introduced his delegation, the cooperation model the University of Minnesota has developed for working with other institutions in both pure research and applied research, and the measures taken to protect intellectual property rights. XJTU President Wang Shuguo said he hoped that the two universities could learn from each other and jointly promote cooperation.

President Wang Shuguo awarded President Kaler a certificate recognizing him as an honorary XJTU professor and the two parties signed a memorandum of cooperation. According to the agreement, the two universities will collaborate in building and operating a joint thermal current laboratory for the purpose of conducting cooperative research in heat energy and engineering.