Zhou Chuangbing: Persisting in the Orientation of Intensive Development, Creating a New Pattern for the University’s Development

On the morning of August 17, the Publicity Department of the Provincial Party Committee, the Provincial Education Work Committee and the Provincial Department of Education jointly held a press conference on the theme of “Jiangxi’s Past Decade” (with a focus on education). Guo Jiezhong, Director of the Provincial Department of Education, released the achievements and progress of Jiangxi education in the past ten years. President Zhou Chuangbing attended the conference and introduced the results of Nanchang University’s reform and development in the past ten years.

According to Zhou Chuangbing’s introduction, during the past decade, Nanchang University has been guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and adhered to the fundamental principle of moral education and putting people first as well as to the intensive development. The university has also accelerated the implementation of three major development strategies, namely strengthening the university with talents, innovation of characteristics, and integration of industry and education. The past ten years have also witnessed the university making great strides to catch up with the high-quality development of China’s higher education in the new era by reforming and innovating and making extraordinary progress in talent training, scientific research, social services, cultural inheritance and innovation, and international educational cooperation.

The quality of talent training has reached a new level. In the past decade, Nanchang University continued to maintain the advantages and characteristics of undergraduate education, with 5 second-class awards for national teaching achievements received, 59 national first-class construction sites for undergraduate majors approved and 30 courses included in the national first-class courses. In 2021, the university ranked 9th in the national ranking of comprehensive undergraduate university competitions. Over the past ten years, the overall strength of the university’s undergraduate talent training has been stable and ranked in the top 40. The university won 33 gold medals in the first seven China International College Students’ “Internet+” Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competitions. Especially in the 7th competition held in 2021, the university won first place in terms of the total number of gold medals and the champion of the competition, breaking the record of the event.

The university achieved new results in the construction of “Double First-class”. The first round of “Double First-class” construction of Nanchang University was highly praised by the discipline evaluation group of the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council. The university has 11 disciplines in the top 1% of the global ESI ranking, which has increased by 8 in the past ten years, among which agricultural science (mainly food-oriented) has entered the 1‰ globally. In the ShanghaiRanking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects, the university’s discipline of food science ranked 7th in the world. The university’s discipline of materials science has made a great contribution to the leapfrog development of China’s LED technology and transformed the position of China’s LED technology from following others to paralleling others and eventually to leading others in specific fields. As a result, the university became one of the first Chinese universities to be placed on the Entity List of the United States.

A new breakthrough has been achieved in teaching staff development. Teachers are the basis of the great plan of education, and a good university must have good teaching staff. After ten years of hard work, by the end of 2021, 64.59% of the university’s teachers have obtained a doctor’s degree, at the same time, the university has continued to made breakthroughs in high-end talents, with the number of academicians produced by the university, Yangtze River Scholars, Distinguished Young Scholars, Excellent Young Scientists, and Top Young Scholar of National “Ten Thousands Talent Program” doubled and redoubled.

New progress was made in science and technology innovation capacity. The university has made successive breakthroughs in national science and technology awards. In 2015, Prof. Jiang Fengyi’s team won the National Technology Invention Award (1st Class). In 2016, Prof. Xie Mingyong’s team won the National S&T Progress Award (2nd Class). In addition, the university has continuously achieved a number of world-leading scientific research achievements. As to the funding projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), Nanchang University’s national ranking is stable in the top 30, with the best ranking reaching 21st place. The university’s ranking in the ShanghaiRanking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects has risen from the ranking after the 1000th to the top 400 now. Academician Jiang Fengyi’s team launched a new LED light source with a complete independent intellectual property right and its series of new products for application, and the total cumulative sales in the past five years exceeded 10 billion, nearly growing the industry tenfold. Based on the resources of China’s special agricultural products, the team of Academician Xie Mingyong has helped companies achieve sales revenue of over 10 billion yuan. Prof. Hong Yijiang’s team of the “Rice-fish System Project” has lifted more than 5,000 farmers out of poverty and won the China Youth May Fourth Medal. For two consecutive years, the university was awarded the title of “Outstanding Organization” after the Third-party Evaluation in Poverty Alleviation.