Between late July and mid-September 2026, Guangdong Radio and Television Station (GRT) completed in-depth engagements with four leading universities in the province — Jinan University, South China University of Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, and South China Agricultural University — within a span of less than two months. On September 14, GRT formally signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with Jinan University, marking the culmination of this intensive round of partnerships.
Engagement with Jinan University
On the morning of July 24, Li Yihang, Party Secretary and Director of GRT, led a delegation to Jinan University for a focused research visit on big data and international communication. Sun Yu, Party Secretary of Jinan University, joined the inspection and chaired a working symposium. The GRT team toured the university's Key Laboratory of Big Data and International Communication, a key laboratory under the Guangdong Provincial Philosophy and Social Sciences program. The lab, built on the university's Computational Communication Research Center, integrates interdisciplinary resources from the School of Journalism and Communication and the School of Information Science and Technology.
During the symposium, Li Yihang proposed four collaboration initiatives: first, jointly establishing a scholarship and teaching award program to nurture outstanding media talent; second, collaborating on communication experimental research to strengthen GRT's domestic and international outreach; third, co-building an expert pool for program advisory to provide intellectual support for improving content quality; and fourth, co-founding an academic journal series to foster a robust research culture within the station. Sun Yu expressed appreciation for the proposals and suggested that the "New Guangdong Overseas" project could be launched in immediate cooperation.
On the afternoon of September 14, the signing ceremony for the strategic cooperation framework agreement between GRT and Jinan University took place at the station's headquarters. Under the agreement, both parties will jointly conduct communication experimental research and data services, bringing big data and artificial intelligence into news production and editing frontline operations while empowering full-media content quality and efficiency. They will establish an expert advisory pool for major reporting and premium content creation, co-publish an academic journal series to complement frontier theory with frontline practice, set up academic and teaching incentives to encourage outstanding students and faculty to delve deeper into communication studies, and implement faculty secondments and student internships to bridge academic training with industry practice.
Engagement with South China University of Technology
On the morning of July 27, Yang Zhongmin, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and President of South China University of Technology, led a delegation to visit GRT. Li Yihang chaired the symposium, with GRT's Editor-in-Chief Zeng Shaohua and Deputy Directors Zhou Wei, Xu Zhiquan, Huang Tianwen, and Shan Yonghui in attendance. The university delegation toured the YueTV integrated media display screen, the live broadcast studio of the television convergence media center for Guangdong News Network, and the soon-to-be-launched 4K studio, gaining insights into news program production workflows and broadcast technology upgrades.
At the symposium, Li Yihang put forward six cooperation suggestions. First, strengthen cooperation on major theme reporting covering the synergy between advanced manufacturing and modern services, the real economy, and Guangdong's drive to build a manufacturing powerhouse, thereby enhancing the quality of GRT's coverage. Second, leverage the university's computing advantages in artificial intelligence and big data to explore technical collaboration across the station's "Lingnan Cloud" and "Yueguang Cloud" platforms, the YueTV and Yueting mobile apps, and the full news collection, planning, production, and broadcast process, supporting GRT's technological upgrades. Third, combine the university's disciplinary strengths in AI and audiovisual communication to jointly establish an AIGC audiovisual content joint laboratory, facilitating the conversion of research outcomes into practical applications and advancing GRT's premium program production to new heights. Fourth, harness the university's high-end think tank resources alongside GRT's full-media communication matrix to pursue platform integration and product co-creation, jointly enhancing international communication effectiveness in the Greater Bay Area. Fifth, leverage the university's strengths in cultivating digitally enabled composite media talent to launch personnel exchange programs and jointly nurture more outstanding media professionals. Sixth, explore collaborative models for academic research and academic journal publishing, co-founding a scholarly journal series to foster a strong business research atmosphere within GRT.
Yang Zhongmin offered three suggestions for the partnership: first, he hopes GRT will intensify promotional coverage to further polish the university's reputation as a leader in scientific research and technology; second, he hopes GRT will assist the university in producing a television documentary on water resource management, contributing to ecological civilization construction in Guangdong and beyond; and third, he hopes more GRT journalists and editors with extensive news experience will lecture at the university, helping cultivate outstanding media talent.
Engagement with Sun Yat-sen University
On the morning of August 26, Liu Chenggong, Party Secretary of Sun Yat-sen University, led a delegation to visit GRT. The two sides conducted in-depth exchanges on topics including theory dissemination, international communication, cultural excellence, and talent cultivation. Wang Fan, Deputy Party Secretary of the university, participated in the research discussions. The delegation was briefed on GRT's achievements in intelligent new media innovation and toured the television convergence media center's production and broadcast areas, observing firsthand the station's efforts to advance deep and systematic media transformation and reshape its integrated media communication ecosystem.
Li Yihang noted that GRT and Sun Yat-sen University share deep historical ties, with many university alumni working at the forefront of broadcasting. He highlighted the solid and effective past cooperation between the two institutions, including the university's centennial anniversary publicity and special documentary production projects. He expressed hopes to jointly build a stronghold for theory dissemination, race on the international communication track together, create premium cultural heritage works, and cultivate talent for the times, channeling the university's intellectual vitality into media transformation.
Liu Chenggong stated that Sun Yat-sen University boasts a comprehensive range of disciplines, deep engagement in frontier technology fields, and a strong foundation in philosophy and social sciences. He expressed hope for establishing a regular communication mechanism to deeply integrate the university's academic, talent, and resource advantages with GRT's communication, platform, and channel advantages, creating benchmark cooperation outcomes in major theme promotion, cultural heritage innovation, and international communication capacity building. During the symposium, the two sides identified four key cooperation directions: jointly building a high ground for theory dissemination, converting academic depth into communication visibility; jointly racing on the international communication track to serve the nation's foreign communication agenda; jointly crafting cultural heritage excellence to activate the contemporary value of a century-old legacy; and deepening industry-education collaborative talent development to promote two-way exchange of personnel.
Engagement with South China Agricultural University
On the afternoon of September 1, Li Yihang held a symposium with Li Fengliang, Party Secretary of South China Agricultural University, who led a delegation to GRT. The university team learned about the station's achievements in platform intelligence building, large and small screen linkage communication, and full-media ecosystem layout through the YueTV new media display, and conducted on-site visits to the television production and broadcast areas and the TV broadcast control center.
Li Yihang noted that South China Agricultural University, relying on its 105 Yonggen Science and Technology Stations spread across the province, is deeply embedded in township and village frontline work, accumulating rich fieldwork research results and industrial practice experience. He described the university as a core think tank partner for GRT to deepen agriculture, rural areas, and farmers-related content production and to tell compelling stories of rural Guangdong in the new era. During the symposium, the two sides defined five regular and systematic cooperation directions to establish a long-term, stable, pragmatic, and efficient university-media integration framework. These include jointly building a rural revitalization content creation system, jointly establishing a mechanism for agricultural-related public opinion analysis and guidance, jointly building a routine agricultural science popularization communication matrix, implementing a long-term project to preserve and promote Lingnan farming culture heritage, and deepening industry empowerment cooperation. Going forward, the two parties will establish a routine coordination mechanism, adhering to small-scale breakthrough points, project-based implementation, and systematic upgrades, prioritizing the landing of projects such as program upgrades, science popularization co-creation, public opinion joint construction, cultural creation, and industry empowerment. They will continue to refine the "mainstream media plus agricultural think tank" integration model, deepen the "Hundreds, Thousands, and Tens of Thousands Project," and empower rural revitalization, injecting new momentum from university-media collaboration into Guangdong's high-quality development.
Closing Observations
Looking at the four partnerships collectively, the logic behind GRT's recent intensive engagement becomes clear: it is not following the conventional path of university-media cooperation but rather undertaking a systematic capacity enhancement for itself. Jinan University contributes data capabilities, South China University of Technology brings technology, Sun Yat-sen University adds humanities depth, and South China Agricultural University provides grassroots fieldwork expertise. Together, the four universities supply the four types of capabilities GRT needs as it transitions from platform expansion to deep operational management.
In the past, university-media cooperation typically revolved around exchanges of interns and practice bases. This time, GRT is offering real application scenarios and communication channels, receiving in return research capabilities, technological expertise, and professional accumulation that could potentially be internalized as its own productive forces.
Of course, signing agreements is merely the starting point. Whether the academic rhythm of universities can truly align with the production tempo of media organizations, and whether the conversion of research outcomes can outpace the window of reform opportunity, depends on establishing routine coordination mechanisms and ensuring that the universities' intellectual resources enter the daily news gathering, planning, editing, and broadcasting processes — rather than remaining confined to symposiums and agreements.
What deserves attention in GRT's recent actions is not which four universities it signed with, but rather its implicit acknowledgment of its own capability gaps and its choice to address them through open cooperation. As mainstream media reform progresses, the room for internal improvement has become increasingly limited. Whoever can more quickly transform external intellectual capital into internal capability will be best positioned to seize the initiative in the next round of competition. This is perhaps the clearest signal emanating from these four engagements.