In July 2012 our inaugural annual Global Partnership Conference took place in New York at the SUNY Global Center. The Series was entitled “Towards a Global Partnership: How Global Challenges Make Global Solutions” and took place July 9-11, 2012. The first opening reception took place at the Peninsula Hotel with a welcome speech by Dr. Walter Christman the Founding Director of the Global Challenges Forum, followed by Dr. Mitch Leventhal the Vice-Chancellor for SUNY Global. The Founding Chairman Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh delivered the opening comments and special guest Mr. Ed Cox, chairman of the New York Republican State Committee, made the keynote remarks.   The two-day conference discussed emerging challenges and shared risks, principals and obstacles and concluded with a way ahead and solutions to improving relations and partnerships with China. The words relationality, shared values, compromise and adaptability were used often by delegates, and all participants felt that positive outcomes could come from events like this and that there was improvements to be made. There were various delegates present and some of the panel discussants included retired Major General Pan Zhenqiang, now the Senior Advisor of the China Reform Forum in Beijing, Ambassador Sarbuland Khan (Delegate of the World Tourism Organization to the U.N), Dr. Qin Yaqing who is a Professor and the Executive Vice President for the China Foreign Affairs University and Dr. Bates Gill, Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.   More than 40 participants coming from Switzerland, the United Sates, China, Sweden, Jordan, and the United Kingdom attended the event. The event was held at the SUNY Global Center because of its central location, its state of the art facilities and the excellent partnership between SUNY Global and the GCF. Overall the Global partnership Series was a success and the findings and outcomes of the 2012 meeting, as well as transcripts of all keynote speeches, are detailed in the 2012 GCF Report, available in PDF form here.