The predecessor of City University of Macau (CityU) is private-owned University of East Asia (UEA), established in 1981. It had been the first formal university in Macau launched by Chinese since Macau opened as a commercial port over 400 years ago. In 1992, UEA underwent a reform that divided the University into three higher education institutions: government-funded University of Macau and Macao Polytechnic Institute, and private-owned East Asia Open Institute (Macau). East Asia Open Institute (Macau) was developed from the postgraduate program at UEA. In 1993, East Asia Open Institute (Macau) and the Portuguese Open University (Universidade Aberta) merged into one institute. As a result, Asia International Open University (Macau) was established. In September 2010, Mr. Chan Meng Kam took over Asia International Open University (Macau) and acted as Chairman of the university council. In February 2011, Asia International Open University (Macau) was officially renamed as City University of Macau (Portuguese: Universidade da Cidade de Macau) and became a private-owned yet non-profit higher education institution. Since Mr. Chan Meng Kam took over CityU, he has been proactively implementing the strategies of Rename, Restructure, Transform and Upgrade, developing CityU as a name-brand university and branding it as the University for the City, Macau. CityU aims to realize its mission and social responsibility: Rooted in Macau and Serve the Region, by aligning its development orientation with that of Macau and the region. The University studies cultural heritages, industries, social structures and development strategies of Macau.