Early this week, a landmark milestone in bilateral educational cooperation between China and Azerbaijan was reached as a new joint engineering faculty, co-founded by China’s Beijing University of Chemical Technology (BUCT) and Azerbaijan’s Baku Engineering University (BEU), officially opened its doors in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital. Launched on Monday, this collaborative academic initiative marks the first Chinese-led undergraduate-level educational institution ever established in Azerbaijan, creating a foundational platform for cross-border knowledge sharing and institutional partnership. The new faculty offers five specialized undergraduate programs: chemistry, polymer materials and engineering, biotechnology and bioengineering, computer science and technology, and mechanical engineering, process equipment and control engineering.
Students who successfully complete all program requirements and meet graduation standards will receive accredited double bachelor’s degrees from both partnering institutions. Beyond academic training, the joint faculty has set three core long-term goals: cultivating high-skilled professionals with global perspectives, deepening bilateral collaboration in teaching practice, scientific research, and academic faculty exchanges, and advancing mutual cultural and educational learning between the two nations.
Tan Tianwei, president of BUCT, noted that China-Azerbaijan bilateral relations have continued to strengthen in recent years, with growing people-to-people exchanges that have laid a solid, enabling foundation for this cross-institutional educational partnership. He expressed his expectation that the current undergraduate collaboration will expand over time to include postgraduate training programs and joint scientific research projects between the two universities.
Yagub Piriyev, president of BEU, framed the new joint faculty as a tangible, practical outcome of innovative educational cooperation, aligned with the consensus reached by the heads of state of both countries on strengthening bilateral higher education collaboration. He added that as China-Azerbaijan ties grow closer, Azerbaijani students hoping to pursue further study in China should prioritize learning the Chinese language and gaining deeper understanding of Chinese history, to become active contributors to ongoing cross-border educational exchange between the two institutions.
Emin Amrullayev, Minister of Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan, also offered his remarks at the inauguration, sharing his hope that BUCT and BEU will continue to expand collaboration in scientific research and doctoral level education, lifting the bilateral educational and scientific partnership to new heights.
To provide context, BUCT was founded in 1958 and is designated as one of China’s national “Double First-Class” universities, a top-tier academic designation reserved for China’s leading higher education institutions. Today, BUCT has evolved into a key comprehensive university with strong foundational strengths in natural sciences, robust engineering research and training capacity, and a diverse range of distinct academic disciplines spanning management, economics, law, literature, education, philosophy, and medicine. BEU, by comparison, is a newer public institution established in 2016, created by the Azerbaijani government to strengthen the country’s domestic engineering and technical education sector to support national economic and technological development.