On November 15, at the winter graduation ceremony held in the D.H. Lawrence Auditorium for the students of 2025, Professor Fan Zhiping was awarded the honorary professorship of the University of Nottingham-Ningbo by Jane Norman, Vice-Chancellor of the University and Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, in recognition of his excellence and contribution in wireless communication and information theory. Professor Fan is Chief Professor of Southwest Jiaotong University and Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), the Chinese Institute of Electronics (CIE), and the China Institute of Communications (CIC).

The University of Nottingham is a member of the Russell Group (the Ivy League of UK), and a founding member of U21, a leading international university research institute. It ranks in the top 100 in QS World University Rankings and has multiple Nobel Prize alumni. In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework, the university was ranked 7th in the UK for research power, with 90% of its research assessed as “world-leading” or “internationally excellent”.

As an internationally renowned scholar with extensive influence in the academic community, Fan Pingzhi has chaired multiple international academic conferences and Technical Program Committee (in VTC/ISIT/ICC/PIMRC, etc.). He founded two IEEE-supported academic conference series, namely the International Workshop on Signal Detection and Analysis (IWSDA) and High Mobility Wireless Communications (MWC). Besides, he also works as an academic volunteer in IEEE and IET. Professor Fan has led and completed several international cooperative projects and directed multiple key nation-level research programs. Professor Fan has been appointed as a visiting professor at the University of Leeds (UK), guest professor (Part-time Doctoral Supervisor) at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, visiting professor at the University of Tsukuba (Japan), visiting professor at Jeonbuk National University (South Korea), and Honorary Professor at the University of Nottingham-Ningbo China.