Zhu Qingbao, Party secretary of Jiangnan University, said at the ceremony that the issues that the food industry faces are of a global nature. Jiangnan University has been cooperating with its sister universities for quite a long time to find possible solutions. For example, the International Conference of Food Science and Technology jointly organized by UC Davis and Jiangnan University has been successfully held for 12 times in the past 27 years.

"The alliance brings together truly formidable intellectual resources to meet urgent global food-related challenges. The world has never been more in need of effective responses to these challenges than it is now," said a member representative, Prof. Ralph J. Hexter, provost and executive vice chancellor of UC Davis, who also expressed his gratitude to Jiangnan University for launching the alliance.

During the ceremony, general secretary of the alliance, Liu Yuanfa announced the Taihu Lake Declaration, aiming to pool together the wisdom and strengths of the member universities to strengthen strategic communication and coordination in the food industry.

The declaration also calls for joint efforts to expand cooperative exchanges to find effective solutions to the problems found in the food industry.

The award ceremony of the 2018 Global Food Science Student Competition was held after the founding ceremony.

The group photo of all the representatives from the member schools of the "Belt and Road" University Alliance for Food Science and Education. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The award ceremony of the 2018 Global Food Science Student Competition is held after the founding ceremony. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]