After nearly a year's investigation and assessment, application submission, online voting, and review by the WEUN Secretariat, the WEUN Secretariat recently agreed the application of the University of Tulsa in the United States, the Industrial University of Tyumen in Russia and the Instituto Superior Técnico in Portugal to join the WEUN by a simple majority vote of Member Representatives to the Secretariat, marking that the three universities become full members of the WEUN. After the three universities joined the WEUN, the number of member universities increased from 28 to 31, and the number of member countries increased from 16 to 17.
This is the first time that the WEUN has recruited new members after its establishment, which shows WEUN's achievement and expanding international influence.
The Worldwide Energy University Network(WEUN) was established at a conference on the 22nd September 2018 in Beijing initiated by its founder China University of Petroleum-Beijing (CUPB). It is a non-legally binding voluntary membership organization of research universities, brought together by a shared strategic interest in research, innovation, education and internationalization in the field of energy.. Its primary purpose is to create a worldwide platform for communication and collaboration among and between the WEUN member universities in research, innovation and education in the field of energy.
Since its establishment, WEUN has made the Constitution, selected the emblem from several original designs, and established the General Assembly, the Secretariat and WEUN Office in Karamay Campus of CUP. It has held 2 student exchange activities including international summer programme and international geology field school, set up the website in Chinese and English, and published 7 volumes of publications with a total of about 100 thousand words. In 2019, 14 member universities received the delegations of CUP, and 17 groups with about 62 person-times from member universities visited CUP, promoting more than 400 teachers' academic and scientific research cooperation and more than 60 undergraduate exchanges between CUP and other member universities, facilitating 7 international conferences held in CUP. At the the First Annual Conference on International Cultural and People-to-People Exchanges of China’s Higher Education (University Alliance), WEUN made experience sharing as an excellent example, which highly affirmed the work of WEUN.
In the future, WEUN will be driven by resources, learning and competition. It will continue to develop with the three primary goals of solving scientific research problems, cultivating global energy leaders and building an international network. It will strive to build a brand in disciplines in the field of energy, educate high-quality international talents, and establish high-level international joint laboratories (or research centers).
The new members are as follows:
The University of Tulsa (TU), founded in 1894, is the oldest comprehensive private university in Oklahoma. In 2020, it ranked 121st among the best universities in the United States. TU is known for its petroleum engineering programs, which are taught in a 16 million facility dollars’ complete with drilling simulator. The McDougall School of Petroleum Engineering of TU is grateful to Petroleum Experts Software Company for donating the program’s IPM suites of licenses at a value of more than $2 million dollars. Because of its strong faculty and research force, the Department of Petroleum Engineering of the TU has always been in the top position of the USA’s petroleum engineering, and has a strong alumni background in the industry.
Since 2007, CUP and TU have cooperated in undergraduate joint training, short-term visiting, teacher-student exchanges, summer camp, etc. So far, there are 107 CUP undergraduates to participate in the 2 + 2 joint training programs and programs sponsored by China Scholarship Council. The TU has visited CUP many times for friendly visits, enrollment publicity, special lectures, etc. President Zhang Laibin was invited to visit TU in 2008, 2011 and 2015. In 2017, the two universities jointly founded the Center of Science and Culture in Karamay campus of CUP.
The University of Tulsa website: https://utulsa.edu/
The Industrial University of Tyumen (IUT), established in 1958, is a non-profit public higher education institution. Being the country’s No.1 petroleum engineering university, IUT is situated in Tyumen region a place that is considered as “Russia’s oil and gas capital”. IUT is one of the largest research and educational complexes in Russia, with about 38,000 students studying 42 Bachelor’s, 27 Master’s and 7 Specialist’s programs. In IUT, there are about 1,500 international students from Canada, Columbia, China, Bulgaria, and Herzegovina, Venezuela, Ghana, Egypt, Vietnam, Azerbaijan, etc. In IUT, nearly the entire teaching stuff consists of academics with oil and gas production background; all the students get on-hands experience in oil and gas companies during their studies and are quickly recruited by these companies upon graduation.
The cooperation between IUT and CUP was facilitated by the Russian Tomsk Drilling Technology Service Company, which aimed to invite the two universities to participate in the joint construction of the Russian-China International Petrochemical Joint Experimental Center. In November 2018, a delegation of IUT led by Pronogin Yakov, Vice President of IUT visited CUP. The two sides expressed that they would carry out scientific research cooperation on oil and gas exploitation, pipeline transportation and other aspects, and reached a cooperation intention on the joint training of students. At the beginning of 2019, the two sides signed a framework cooperation agreement, and at the same time, IUT applied to join the WEUN.
The Industrial University of Tyumen website: https://www.tyuiu.ru/
Instituto Superior Técnico(IST), created in 1911, is the largest and most reputed school of Engineering, Science and Technology and Architecture in Portugal. There are two geological resources majors: Master of Petroleum Engineering and Master of Energy Management Engineering. Besides, it has one PhD on Petroleum Engineering. IST has more than two decades of research and development in projects. It possesses two ongoing projects: One is related to the petroleum industry (from early stages of exploration up to production optimization), Geophysics, Geothermal energy, mining engineering, geomechanical modelling and groundwater modelling. The other one is related to Alternative Energy Sources-Energy Efficiency and Bio-fuels.
In 2014, IST and CUP signed a cooperation framework agreement. At the beginning of 2019, the two sides signed an agreement on student exchange program. Based on the agreement, CUP selected 5 master students majoring in petroleum engineering to carry out professional subject research in IST. In October 2019, President Zhang Laibin led a delegation to visit IST and renewed the cooperation agreement. Both IST and CUP are members of Sino-EU Engineering Education Platform (SEEEP).
Instituto Superior Técnico website: https://tecnico.ulisboa.pt/pt/
