On April 8, Prime Minister of Norway Solberg on an official visit to China came to Fudan University, attended the First International Culture Festival “Norway Day” carnival activity of the School of Management, Fudan University, and gave a speech at the launch ceremony. Solberg and President of Fudan University Ningsheng XU pressed the launch ball together to kick off the “Norway Day”. After the launch ceremony, Solberg visited some exhibition stands at the venue of the “Norway Day” accompanied by President XU and Yaming ZHOU, Associate Vice President of Fudan University.

In her speech, Solberg emphasized the importance of education to people and highly recognized the role played by the BI Norwegian Business School – Fudan University MBA Program in the exchanges between the two countries. She hoped the two countries would continue to expand exchanges and cooperation in various fields in depth, and said the audience should continue to share knowledge and experience different cultures.

The “Norway Day” carnival activity held under the lead of the BI–Fudan MBA Program was the first activity of the First International Culture Festival of the School of Management, Fudan University, including links such as theme speeches, alumni salons, traditional cultural performances and tasting of special delicacies. In the morning’s activity, Director General of the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise Kristin Skogen Lund and President of BI Norwegian Business School Inge Jan Henjestad discussed Norwegian innovation. Director of Tourism, Innovation Norway Bente Bratland Holm and Regional Marine Director, North East Asia, Jotun Morten Sten Johansen gave speeches titled “Norway: powered by nature” and “JOTUN - A Norwegian Success in China” respectively.

Fudan University and Norway’s universities have maintained good cooperative relationship over time. Back in the 1990s, a number of Norwegian professors with great foresight and brilliant ideas proposed to establish the Nordic Centre at Fudan University on the basis of cooperation with colleagues at Fudan University over the years. In 1995, the then Prime Minister of Norway Ms. Brundtland visited Fudan University, and attended the ceremony of the Nordic Centre’s establishment. Five universities in Norway including the University of Oslo have been the centre’s members since its establishment and have carried out extensive academic cooperation and exchanges with Fudan University, including teacher and student exchanges, joint courses, cooperative research and joint education in many fields of study.

Among the numerous cooperative programs, it is especially worth mentioning that in 1996, the School of Management, Fudan University and the BI Norwegian Business School began to offer the “change management” MBA program through cooperation. It became one of China’s earliest international cooperative degree education programs approved by the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council. Later the program was transformed into an MBA program to foster professional managers with international competitiveness. In 2012, this program was included into the first batch of “Shanghai’s Sino-foreign cooperative education programs” and was commended by the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission. On the 2016 list of EMBA programs around the world released by Financial Times, the BI–Fudan MBA Program came 39^th, ranking 4^th in the world in terms of salary percentage increase, 5^th in the world among part-time MBA programs and 6^th in the world among part-time MBA programs in terms of career development.

In 2017, the 100^th anniversary of the founding of Fudan University’s business education, the School of Management carried out the “International Culture Festival” series of activities to bring the advantages of the School’s internationalized school running into full play, display the cultural features of various countries in the world on the campus in diversified forms of expression, deepen communication and exchanges among Chinese and foreign teachers, students and staff members and further enhance the School’s international image and influence while vividly demonstrating the results of the School’s international cooperative education programs.