On April 3, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (SUFE) and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co., Ltd. (SPDB) signed a strategic cooperation agreement, aiming to establish a new model of university-bank collaboration and jointly support the construction of Shanghai's "Five Centers," contributing to the advancement of Chinese-style modernization.
The signing ceremony was witnessed by SUFE Party Secretary Xu Tao and President Liu Yuanchun, as well as SPDB Head Office Party Secretary and Chairman Zhang Weizhong, and Executive Director and President of SPDB Research Institute Xie Wei. SUFE Vice Presidents Yao Lingzhen and Liu Liya, along with SPDB Head Office Deputy Chairman and Chairman of Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Bank Kang Jie, and Executive Director and President of Shanghai Branch Wang Sunan, represented their respective institutions in signing the agreement. The event was presided over by Liu Yiyan, Executive Director and Deputy Head of SPDB Head Office, as well as Chief Risk Officer. 
Zhang Weizhong, representing SPDB, welcomed SUFE's delegation led by Xu Tao and Liu Yuanchun. He emphasized SPDB's commitment to serving national strategies and Shanghai's urban development, focusing on advancing the "five key areas" of financial development and implementing a "digital intelligence" strategy to support Shanghai's "Five Centers" construction. He highlighted that the collaboration between SUFE and SPDB represents a deep integration of academia and finance, as well as a synergy of theory and practice. By empowering each other and working toward common goals, the two institutions aim to form a new cooperative community, injecting new momentum into Shanghai's development and contributing to the construction of a strong financial nation.
Xu Tao stated that the signing of this cooperation agreement reflects SUFE's proactive responsibility in implementing national strategies and meeting the urgent needs of Shanghai's "Five Centers" construction. It also represents a necessary choice for deepening industry-education integration, promoting high-quality development of financial disciplines, and empowering financial innovation in the new era. SUFE will work hand in hand with SPDB to plan development from a higher perspective, layout the future with a longer-term vision, deepen industry-academia-research collaboration, and build a highland of financial innovation. 
The collaboration will focus on deep integration of industry and education to cultivate compound-type financial leaders, accelerate the transformation of financial innovation achievements, and establish an empowerment chain from technology to application scenarios, ensuring that financial resources precisely support the high-quality development of the real economy. At this signing ceremony, both parties will closely align with the requirements of building a strong education and financial nation, transforming their professional and resource advantages into cooperative, developmental, and ecological advantages, and initiating comprehensive and in-depth cooperation: leading with joint party-building efforts to create a red benchmark for university-bank collaboration; focusing on research platforms to advance an integrated innovation ecosystem of "industry, academia, government, research, and application"; taking talent cultivation as a mission to jointly nurture high-quality, compound-type financial talent; and leveraging the opportunity of a new campus construction to build a smart campus, achieving mutual empowerment and win-win development between education and finance. This collaboration will become an important force in coordinating scientific research and industrial innovation, better serving the development of new productive forces, and jointly writing a brilliant chapter of deep integration between financial education and financial innovation.
During the event, the SUFE-SPDB Financial Innovation Research Institute was officially inaugurated. The institute will accelerate the exploration of building a new type of think tank with complementary advantages, bidirectional guidance, and ecological empowerment. Focusing on the integration of "industry, academia, research, government, and application," the institute will prioritize research and talent cultivation in areas such as technology finance, inclusive finance, digital finance, cross-border finance, treasury finance, and green finance. It aims to expedite the transformation of financial theoretical innovations into practical applications, explore new models of technology empowering finance and finance empowering industries, inject new momentum into the high-quality development of the real economy, and contribute "SUFE solutions, SPDB voices, and Shanghai wisdom" to the construction of a strong financial nation and Shanghai's international financial center.
Leaders from SPDB, including Chief Economist and Head of Financial Market Department Xue Hongli, as well as heads of relevant departments from SUFE, jointly attended the event.
