In May 21, at the invitation of the School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship , Professor Martin de Jong from Erasmus University Rotterdam made an academic lecture named “City Branding — from ‘Green Design’ to Real Transition” at the west building of Huagangyuan of Qingdao Campus, Shandong University. Qiao Yue, the associate dean of the School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship presided. Representatives of teachers and students from the School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Law School and the School of Innovation Intermediary pf SDU attended the lecture.
Taking Chongming Island as an example, Martin de Jong talked about the policies of the development of ecological cities and introduced that the popularity of intelligent cities, ecological cities and green cities lies in their attraction of top talents on the one hand, and the orientation and demand of policies, assessments, trends, city honors and city branding on the other. He explained Qingdao green ecological city’s attraction of innovative projects and also the way of achieving it by selecting Tianjin, Guangzhou, Melbourne, Amsterdam as examples to analyze. He also described 12 city types including livable city, intelligent city, knowledge city, information city and so on and their relevance. Besides, Martin de Jong analyzed the methods of city branding success of Qatar, Dubai and Abu Dhabi from the perspective of aviation development, free trade zone, immigration policy and high quality tourism. Many cities like New York, Paris and Amsterdam also designed their own brand identities. He summed up the features of city branding, including its attraction of investors, industrial development, featured projects, policy support, achievable aims, good visions of the future based on the past and present, collaboration between enterprises and residents, signs, slogans, architecture, infrastructure and so on. Finally, Professor Martin de Jong elaborated the classification and significance of city branding from three levels including brand positioning, brand viability consideration and city brand external feedback.
At the end of the lecture, Martin de Jong answered questions from teachers and students about the role of residents and government in city branding, and he also expressed that branding is an important part of city development. The uniqueness of every city should be respected.
Before the lecture, Professor Martin de Jong had a panel discussion with faculties from the School of Innovation Intermediary. After listening to the introduction of the School and the preliminary development plan, he said he would give support to the School from the perspective of the recruitment of foreign teachers, joint doctoral training, international conference, mutual visits of researchers and so on. The two sides will also explore possibilities of cooperation between the School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Rotterdam School of Management
Martin de Jong now is the professor of Erasmus School of Law and Rotterdam School of Management, talent from the Shanghai Recruitment Program of Global Experts and adjunct professor of School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University. He previously served as the assistant professor of the University of Amsterdam, director of SCUT-TU Delft Joint Research Center on Urban Systems & Environment (USE), professor of TU Delft Research Group on City and Infrastructure Construction of China. His research interests include transportation infrastructure policy, ecological city and sustainable urbanization, urban planning and policy decision of China, comparative institutional analysis and transnational policy shifts, cross-cultural management and so on.
