Don Ward visited China in September 2026 to meet with local members and to promote CIB across the country. Objectives included to facilitate greater engagement and value for China members in CIB, to raise the profile of CIB in the region, to promote World Building Congress 2028 to be hosted by Tsinghua University in Beijing in May 2028, and to understand which research areas are of interest to Chinese universities for global collaboration.
Don’s schedule included the following, CIB President Dongping Fang also attended a number of the meetings:
- A meeting of CIB members in China organised by the CIB Regional Directors and hosted by Chongqing University. Also attended by CIB President Dongping Fang and CIB Immediate Past President Makarand Hastak.
- Attendance and keynote presentation at the annual conference of the Chinese Society of Civil Engineers attended by over 1000 people.
- Campus visits and meetings with the following members: Southwest Jiaotong University, Xi’an University of Architecture & Technology and Chang’an University, Southeast University, Central South University, Hunan University, City University Hong Kong, and Hong Kong University.
It was a packed trip featuring thousands of miles of high-speed rail journeys. Highlights included:
- A great turnout for our Regional Director’s meeting with China members at Chongqing University.
- Meeting HKU’s CIB Student Chapter and hearing about their CIB Gyula Sebestyén Award winning project “Breaking Language Barriers in Knowledge Exchange: Expert-in-the-loop Deep Translation of CIB Video for Construction 5.0” to translate the top 30 most-viewed CIB YouTube videos into Chinese and other languages.
- The mightily impressive wave and wind engineering research facilities at Southwest Jiaotong University.
- The Yuelu Academy, now part of Hunan University, over 1000 years old, one of the four most renowned ancient academies of higher learning in China and a centre of Confucian learning.
- Visits to see the Giant Pandas in Chengdu and the Terracotta Warriors in Xi’an.
“I am very grateful to all our members who hosted our visits, particularly as it fell during the week of the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival and many people gave up their holiday time to meet. The meetings were very interesting and highly productive and will lead to closer working and more collaboration. Thank you also to everyone for their wonderful hospitality.”
Don Ward, CIB Chief Executive.
