On  27 December 2020, the inauguration of Harbin Open University (Harbin OU), as well as a meeting to promote its construction and development, was held at the Friendship Palace, Harbin.

At the meeting, Jing Degang, secretary of the Party Committee and president of the OUC, Ju Chuanjin, OUC vice president, Chen Yuanfei, vice mayor of Harbin, and Zhang Lining, secretary of the Party Committee of Harbin Radio and TV University (Harbin RTVU), jointly unveiled Harbin OU.

Over the past 60 years, Harbin RTVU has cultivated more than 340,000 people with junior college and undergraduate degrees and trained a great number of the human resources needed for Harbin's reform and opening up. It has accumulated lifelong learning experience and explored a road for the development of new type of higher education. During the 14th Five-Year Plan, Harbin OU will focus on serving the demands for talented professionals created by economic and social construction and the construction of a lifelong learning system in Harbin and give full play to the positive role of the open university. It will actively adapt to the development trends of digital, intelligent, lifelong, and integrated education, and successfully complete its transformation and development. It will make effort to build “Four Platforms,” namely, major platforms for serving lifelong and online education in Harbin and platforms for flexible education and foreign cooperation.

Harbin RTVU changed its name to Harbin OU on 26 November 2020 with the approval of Heilongjiang provincial government. Its affiliations, management system, and existing rights to run degree and non-degree education remain unchanged after the renaming and it is still under the supervision of Harbin Municipal People's Government.

OUC News Network, reprinted from Heilongjiang News