On January 8, Prof. Sir Hilary Beckles, Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies (UWI), and a delegation from Global Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) in Suzhou, China visited Jiangsu University (JSU). The guests were received by Prof. Yuan Shouqi, Chair of JSU Committee, and Prof. Chen Long, Vice President of JSU; Prof. Yuan Shouqi signed an agreement of cooperation with UWI and GIST.

Prof. Yuan extended a warm welcome to the delegation, and briefed on the advantages, characteristics and achievements of JSU in talents cultivation, discipline construction, social service, and international cooperation and exchanges. Prof.Hilary, who thanked JSU for the warm reception, also introduced the history of UWI, the overall situations of its four school campuses, its current status and future strategy for development. The three parties reached and signed an agreement of cooperation on the establishment of the JSU Suzhou Caribbean Institute.

Planned to be co-founded by JSU, GIST and GIST, the JSU Suzhou Caribbean Institute will be a Chinese-foreign joint-education school without the legal person status, offering four undergraduate programs, including Network Engineering, Software Engineering, E-commerce, and Computer Science & Technology.

UWI, an autonomous regional university jointly established by 17 English-speaking Caribbean countries, is the largest comprehensive university in the Caribbean area. In 2009, Mr. Xi Jinping, Former Vice President of China at that time, attended the opening ceremony of the Confucius Institute of UWI at Mona in Kingstown, Jamaica. UWI is recognized as a university of great influence in the Caribbean.