On May 24, the Hunan Provincial People's Government inked an agreement with the Ministry of Education (ME)and the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense to jointly push the development of Central South University, Hunan University, and University of South China to a higher level.

Secretary of the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee Zhou Qiang, Governor of Hunan Province Xu Shousheng, Deputy Minister of ME Du Zhanyuan, Chief of the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense Chen Qiufa, and leaders of Hunan University Liu Keli, Zhong Zhihua and Zhao Yueyu attended the signing ceremony.

According to the agreement, the ME will help Central South University and Hunan University advance the development of disciplines, innovation platform and innovation team, break new ground in talents cultivating patterns, carry forward the system and mechanism innovation, and forge a solid production- learning-research cooperation alliance. The State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense will exert efforts to promote the three universities' development of disciplines and subjects relating to national defense, building and improvement of laboratories on science and technology of national defense, application of national defense scientific research projects and achievements, and construction of production- learning-research bases, etc The Hunan Provincial People's Government will give priority to their innovation platform and base construction, disciplines development, application of major scientific research projects and so on.