Joaquim NASSAR: recipient of Shanghai’s first unified work permit for foreigners

Words for the future of reform and opening up

“Today’s Shanghai is greatly different from what it was 40 years ago. I cannot imagine what it would be without the reform and opening up,” says Prof. Nassar.

In his career in Shanghai, Prof. Nassar has found out that most of the accomplished Chinese scientists at top universities in the world would eventually choose to return to Shanghai to further their academic career. The professor himself has also experienced Shanghai’s appeal to foreign experts and the city’s facilitation of foreign exchange research as he told the reporter, “In the academic circle in France, almost all universities would like to cooperate with Shanghai.”

He also posits that, “The reform and opening up has not only changed China but also changed the world. Without China’s reform, the entire human race would be living and working in another way. Nowadays, in fields such as energy, raw materials, food and climate change, China’s decisions are making global impacts. The technology that China is researching is being introduced into other countries.”

“Now China is in the position of being the one who produces the new technologies and the innovations that are adopted in the rest of the world and to contribute to innovations in other countries. I think this will happen in domains such as e-commerce, mobile services, shared and electric vehicles, autonomous driving, artificial intelligence, etc,” says the professor. For him, it is very exciting to be here and to collaborate to educate students who will contribute to this.

Joaquim NASSAR’s wishes for China’s new journey of reform and opening up:
China's reform and opening up has changed and will continue to change both China and the world. China's future is closely related to the development of the world, especially in the fields of higher education and scientific research. The world's top scientific research teams have Chinese scientists. ParisTech colleges are very honored to have established SPEIT in Shanghai with SJTU, to jointly train China's future outstanding engineers．