On the morning of December 14, 2018, Liu Xiuhua, curator of the World Expo Museum, and Wang Dawei, acting dean of Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts of Shanghai University, signed the Strategic Cooperation Agreement at the opening ceremony of “Energizing the Future - Expo 2017 Astana Exhibition”. The cooperation aims to maximize the public education function of WEM. The partnership is expected to pool together high-quality resources and promote World Expo studies as an academic discipline with Chinese characteristics and international vision and cultivate future architecture, environment, MICE, visual art and media, event operation and management professionals. Through major research projects, a platform will be created to enable exploration of World Expos in terms of content, design, communication and branding.

　　On the afternoon of Dec. 14, Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts and WEM co-organized the Seminar on Creative Designs of International Exhibitions. The seminar focused on the creative designs for World Expos, the curation of the Milan Triennial, as well as research and practice of international exhibitions, providing a platform for uniting designers and industry participants.

　　Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts has made exhibition design for WEM part of their design teaching curriculum and WEM has received more than 30 design works from the faculty and students of the Academy of Fine Arts. Some of the outstanding works have been entered into the derivatives reserve of WEM and used as the graphic concept pool for the interactive Expo 201y Astana exhibition.

　　The partnership between Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts and WEM is the first its kind in China. It will be imitated and the model will be promoted to engage more domestic and international institutions and scholars. It will form a network of academic research and education through sharing resources and strengths,