Belt and Road Aerospace Innovation Alliance (BRAIA) 2021 Standing Council Meeting was successfully held online on May12, 2021 by Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU), China.Mr.Gao Wei, Senior Counsel of Education Department of Shaanxi Provincial Government and Prof. Zhang Weihong, Vice President of NPU attended the meeting. Nearly 50 representatives from BRAIA Standing Council Members, BRAIA Academic Committee and BRAIA Joint Research Seed Fund Projectsin 7 countries participated in the meeting.

Prof Zhang Weihong, on behalf of the co-initiator and Permanent Secretariat of BRAIA, and Mr. Gao Wei, on behalf of Education Department of Shaanxi Provincial Government delivered welcome speeches respectively.

Prof. Adnan Maqsood, head of Department Computational Engineering, National Universities of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Pakistan reported achievements and working plan of BRAIA Regional Development Center (RDC) - South Asia, invited aeronautical and astronautical universities in Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka to join BRAIA, and proposed to establish NPU-NUST BRAIA Joint Laboratory of Future Aerospace Systems within the framework of BRAIA.

In the meeting, Prof. Zhang Weihong and Prof. Rizwan Riaz, Pro Rector of NUST signed the Memorandum of Understanding on establishing the Lab.

Representatives from BRAIA Joint Research Seed Fund Projects made mid-term progress reports and Prof. Franco Bernelli from Politenico di Milano, Italy made comments on each project and put forward suggestions on behalf of BRAIA Academic Committee.

With the continuous impact of Covid-19, BRAIA Permanent Secretariat keeps exploring cooperation among BRAIA members, improving exchange mechanism combining online approaches and onsite communication, and achieving new fruits.