The strategic goal of the discipline of Civil Engineering of Tongji University is to stand, by the year 2020, in the first row of the world-class disciplines. To this end, the International Evaluation Committee (IEC) was called upon to help Tongji understand the current position of the Civil Engineering discipline among the other universities of the world. Particularly, a thorough evaluation was conducted by the IEC on June 1-3, 2011, aimed at improving the overall performance and internationalization of the College of Civil Engineering and its associated departments. Eight professors were invited from different parts of the world as members of the IEC, including:

   Ross B. Corotis, University of Colorado, Boulder, Mario Fontana, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Stephen Mahin, University of California, Berkeley, Herbert Mang, Vienna University of Technology, Jeffrey A. Packer, University of Toronto, Mark Randolph, University of Western Australia, Thiam Soon Tan, National University of Singapore, and Yeong-Bin Yang, National Taiwan University.

   Before the evaluation members departed for Shanghai, all of them were invited by the College via e-mails to comment on the Agenda of Evaluation to be followed in the three-day review. The evaluators proposed several amendments to the draft agenda prepared by the College. In particular, a Pre-Review Meeting was scheduled for all evaluators on the evening of the arrival day, June 1, for the purpose of adjusting or confirming the program to be conducted. In the following two days, all the evaluation works were carried out smoothly, following the final agenda