May 12 to 18, 2014, at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, the President of the Republic of Portugal Anibal Cavaco Silva state visited to China in order to expand bilateral cooperation in various fields, such as research, education and promoting the further development of bilateral relations.

On 16 May, in the presence of the Portuguese Ministry of Education, the Rector of UMinho Prof. António Cunha, the General Director of Institute of Microbiology ,Chinese Academy of Science (IMCAS) Prof. Shuangjiang Liu and Director of the World Data Centre of Microorganisms (WDCM) Dr Juncai Ma, a memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed in Beijing. This MoU aims to enhance scientific and educational cooperation on microbial information technology with WDCM, IMCAS and the University of Minho, including developing new E-learning and continued education schemes in microbiology and biotechnology. University of Minho will share data standards of microbial resources under the guidelines of the World Federation for Culture Collections and a microbial resources management platform in order to facilitate data management and microbial culture exchange under the international cooperation framework of the Global Catalogue of Microorganisms (http://gcm.wfcc.info/).

Founded in 1973, the University of Minho is a central actor in the region, an important reference for the country and a recognized partner at a European and global level. It is renowned for the competence and quality of its teachers and for the level of excellence in research as well as the wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses offered and the remarkable degree of interaction with other institutions.