On August 14th, the university formally received a notice from the Asian Planning Schools Association (APSA) Secretariat that the faculty of Innovation and Design has been formally approved as a full member of APSA. The faculty of Innovation and Design has become the first official APSA full member in Macau. It is reported that the Faculty of Innovation and Design submitted the APSA membership application materials in October last year. The Macau Urban Planning Institute also provided our university with an important letter supporting the application to join APSA. In August this year, the APSA Executive Committee held a meeting to formally discuss the membership application and finally agreed the Faculty of Innovation and Design to join the Association.

APSA (Asian Planning Schools Association) is one of the four most influential regional academic organizations in urban planning across the world. It is mainly dedicated to providing planners and planning schools with a platform to discuss urban planning issues in Asian countries and  foster new generations of academics and professional planners in Asia. The secretariat of APSA is located at the University of Tokyo. The current president of APSA is Professor Sang-In Jun from Seoul National University. APSA full members are all flagship institutions of urban planning education and research in Asia, including the School of Architecture at Tsinghua University, College of Architecture and Urban Planning at Tongji University , Department of Urban Planning and Design at the University of Hong Kong, Graduate Institute of Building and Planning at the National Taiwan University, Department of Urban Engineering at the University of Tokyo, and the Graduate School of Environmental Studies at Seoul National University. The Assistant Professor Chaosu Li, program Coordinator of the Master and Ph.D. Programs of Urban Planning and Design at the Faculty of Innovation and Design, attended the 15th APSA Congress held at Seoul National University representing the University. He has been facilitating the Faculty of Innovation and Design to join APSA.