NTU and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign teamed up to jointly host the NTU-UIUC Global Issues Forum here at NTU on November 3 and 4. The conference was the first in a series of at least three NTU-UIUC Global Issues Forums that will take place over the next three years. This first edition, the "Global Issues Forum: Smart Cities, Healthy Cities," was designed to combine the two universities' strengths across disciplines with the goal of developing innovative solutions for the world's ever-growing cities.

NTU and UIUC enjoy a long history of exchanges and cooperation. The forum represented another leap forward in cooperation between the two partner institutions, with UIUC's top officials, including Chancellor Phyllis Wise, Provost Ilesanmi Adesida, Associate Chancellor for Corporate and International Relations Pradeep Khanna, and Associate Chancellor for Research Peter Schiffer, leading a delegation of 30 UIUC professors in attending the event. The closeness of the connections shared between the two institutions is enhanced by the fact that more than 80 full-and part-time NTU professors earned degrees at UIUC.

At the opening ceremony, UIUC's Chancellor Wise and NTU President Pan-Chyr Yang both emphasized the importance of international academic cooperation, with Chancellor Wise speaking of its positive impact on the world and President Yang highlighting NTU's international achievements.

Applying a multidisciplinary approach to "the challenges of global urbanization," the participants in the forum addressed the main theme of "Smart Cities, Healthy Cities" through the six interdisciplinary subthemes of "Built Environment and Health," "Healthy Ageing in Urban Environments," "Water, Air, and Environment," "Transportation and Mobility," "Secure/Safe Electric Energy and Cyberinfrastructure," and "Smart Agriculture and Food Safety/Security." With an eye on facilitating the exchange of expertise over a range of fields, professors from the two universities engaged in discussion and debates of the themes and agreed on specific routes for potential collaboration in the future.

The second NTU-UIUC Global Issues Forum is scheduled to take place at UIUC next year.