On October 23, the 15th anniversary celebration of the "Sino-French 4+4 program" and the renewing ceremony was held at Southwest Jiaotong University. Tsinghua University vice-president Yuan Si, acting on behalf of the Chinese cooperative universities, signed the cooperation framework letter of intent and the joint double degree training agreement. He then presented a program review report on behalf of the program universities of China and France. The program summary and the renewing ceremony of cooperation agreement of "Sino-France 4+4 program" was chaired by the vice president of XJTU Lu Tianjian.

Vice president Lu Tianjian summarized the accomplishments of the "Sino-French 4+4 program." He said that the successful signing of the cooperation framework letter of intent and the joint double degree training agreement indicated that cooperation in higher education between China and France had reached a new stage, and it would surely become a leading example of cooperation in higher level engineering education between China and France and would contribute to promoting the higher level engineering education of China and France.

Promoted actively by the governments and education departments of both China and France, the "Sino-French 4+4 program" began in October 1996 with the signing of the first joint double degree training program by five universities: Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Xi'an Jiaotong University and Southwest Jiaotong University and French Ecoles Centrales. To date, 131 XJTU students have been enrolled in the program, and of these, 103 students have received their joint degrees from China and France.