Centennial Sun Yat-sen University has upheld its motto written by its founder in its development and continuously enriched the motto's meaning with progress through the eras.
Revolutionary pioneer Sun Yat-sen wrote the motto "Study Extensively, Inquire Accurately, Reflect Carefully, Discriminate Clearly, Practice Earnestly" when he established the National Guangdong University, the predecessor of Sun Yat-sen University, in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, a century ago.
Numerous masters in their respective fields put their weight behind the development of the university, including Feng Youlan, Guo Moruo, Lu Xun, Fu Sinian, Zhao Yuanren, Chen Yinke and Zhong Shifan.
Distinctive characteristics of being a comprehensive, research-oriented and open university have been fostered, with numerous talented people cultivated and important contributions made to the nation and its people, said university president Gao Song in a recent interview.
The university now has a full range of academic faculties including humanities, natural sciences, health sciences, engineering, agriculture and arts, with a strong capacity in basic research. The university accommodates 70 colleges and departments and 10 affiliated hospitals, with its postgraduate education encompassing all disciplines except military science.
It operates 38 national-level platforms for scientific research and innovation and 243 such platforms at the provincial and ministerial levels. Emphasis is placed on the building of major science and technology infrastructure, including the Tianqin program on gravitational wave research, a comprehensive scientific research and student training ship, the research icebreaker, the National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou, the high energy direct geometry chopper spectrometer and the center for precision medicine, Gao said.
Gao Song, president of Sun Yat-sen University, talks with Anne Ferguson-Smith, then pro-vice-chancellor for research of the University of Cambridge, in 2023.
The university's advantages also lie in its location within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, which shoulders the mission of becoming an international science, technology and innovation center. The university has five campuses in the major cities of Guangzhou, Zhuhai and Shenzhen in Guangdong, and launched the Sun Yat-sen University Institute of Advanced Studies Hong Kong in October. The university distinguishes itself with its unique culture cultivated through the founder's thoughts on education, the Lingnan culture in South China that features openness and inclusiveness, and its geographical location, he said.
Sun Yat-sen University ranks 73rd globally, gauged by Essential Science Indicators, a widely recognized tool for assessing the global academic standing and influence, or fifth among universities on the Chinese mainland.
Twenty-one of its academic disciplines are ranked among the top 1 percent of ESI, 11 of which among the top 0.1 percent.
Eyeing the future, Gao said the disciplinary improvement of the university will be based on demand arising from the development of science and technology and national strategy.
Such improvement will be aimed at cultivating several "peak disciplines" with stronger resource input to facilitate more major breakthroughs and to increase their global competitiveness.
Efforts will also be made to nurture new growth areas, ushering in the future and improving the cross-disciplinary building mechanism, an example of the latter being the establishment of the Institute of Green Chemistry and Molecular Engineering in 2023.
A French expert tutors students at the Sino-French Institute of Nuclear Engineering and Technology.
New engineering disciplines will be a growth area of the university, which will be located mainly on the campus in Shenzhen, which is witnessing dynamic development of strategic emerging industries. For that purpose, the university will continue to enhance cooperation with national research institutions and leading technology companies.
The university has forged strategic cooperation with institutions including Guangzhou Laboratory, Pengcheng Laboratory and Shenzhen Bay Laboratory to train postgraduate students.
It has also built joint research platforms with companies such as China Unicom, Sinopec, Guangzhou Automobile Group and Huawei Technologies.
To promote the progress of interdisciplinarity, the university carried out reform in recent years, leading to seven faculties and a three-tier (school-faculty-university) academic governing system.
With the establishment of the faculty of medicine in 2022, resources related to medical science have been consolidated and optimized, said Tian Guobao, vice-dean of the School of Medicine of the university, who has been devoted to the study of antimicrobial resistance.
The integration of related disciplines has since been promoted, he said, adding a team was formed in 2022 for the study of antimicrobial resistance of pathogenic microorganism, aiming for new breakthroughs.
International students enjoy their campus life before the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Sun Yat-sen University.
In serving the national strategy, the university has made an array of achievements in basic research, including the discovery of nickelate high-temperature superconducting material and a new therapy for treating nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
The university has also made major achievements in the fields of philosophy and social sciences in serving State governance. The Institute of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Development Studies, which is one of the first group of national high-end think tanks, has scored influential research results jointly with some other think tanks at the university.
Zhang Zhuoyuan, a 91-year-old alumnus of the university and an influential economist who has made significant contributions to market economy research, was awarded the national honorary title of Outstanding Contributor to Economic Research in September ahead of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
The university has contributed to national strategies including Healthy China, rural vitalization, the development of the western region, the Belt and Road Initiative and advanced manufacturing.
On the education of students, Gao said the university has been putting into practice the philosophy of solidifying the foundation, promoting cross-discipline studies, respecting choices and excelling in teaching in recent years.
Students should develop in an all-around manner, be future-oriented and hold first-class creativity, which calls for an integration of general education and professional education, as well as a diversified and open system that can be constantly upgraded.
Amid a new round of technological and industrial revolution, innovation in talent cultivation is necessary, with focuses to be placed on nurturing top-end innovative talents, exploring new education catering to entrepreneurial endeavors and innovation, and empowering education with artificial intelligence, Gao said.
International collaborations fuel growing influence
Situated in Guangdong province, which has stood at the forefront of the country's exchange and cooperation with other countries and regions, Sun Yat-sen University has expanded its connections with its counterparts overseas.
The university has established cooperative relations with 290 institutions of higher learning, 62 of which are on the world's top 100 list, and research institutions and international organizations located in more than 40 countries and regions.
Such relations have supported the development of its academic disciplines, led to concrete joint projects and teams, and facilitated its participation in global governance, forming an important driving force behind the university's high-quality development.
The university's Tianqin Center for Gravitational Physics, which is engaged in gravitational wave research, has been collaborating with Lomonosov Moscow State University, the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics and the University of Glasgow in building a state-of-the-art science center.
The space-based gravitational wave detection program, Tianqin, will consist of three satellites forming an equilateral triangle around the Earth by 2035.
The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University has carried out in-depth cooperation with the Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Joslin Diabetes Center, all affiliated with Harvard Medical School, in academic discipline building, talent cultivation and remote medical service.
It also created an international robotic surgery training center in 2023 with the University of California at Berkeley; University of California, Davis; and the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society, which is a research unit of the University of California.
The hospital also cooperates with institutions such as the Association for Medical Education in Europe, the University of Birmingham, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Chinese University of Hong Kong across a wide range of fields.
The Sino-French Institute of Nuclear Engineering and Technology is located on campus in Zhuhai. It is a joint project with a French consortium for the training of civil nuclear engineers led by Grenoble INP-UGA, and was inaugurated in 2010.
The institute trains Chinese students who are to work in the nuclear field and in the Sino-French nuclear industry, with China and France having a long history of collaboration in the nuclear field, said Jean-Marie Bourgeois-Demersay, dean of the institute.
Each year, it enrolls between 80 and 120 students and sends groups of Chinese students to France, who will join the partner schools. Many of them stay in France for their PhD program after graduation. The employment rate of the alumni is almost 100 percent, Bourgeois-Demersay said.
The institute has foreign teachers, mostly from France, who live in Zhuhai, as well as visiting foreign teachers, having received more than 50 visiting professors since 2010.
These make a good measurement of both the attractiveness and achievement of the program, he said.
Recently the collaboration was extended again to 2028, with a new master program implemented on nuclear application in the medical field.
"This is an important area for our future development and we believe it will be very attractive to our students," Bourgeois-Demersay said.
In 2020, the university and UNESCO agreed to set up a teaching post on sustainable tourism in UNESCO World Heritage Sites at the university.
In the latest development in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Sun Yat-sen University unveiled its Institute of Advanced Studies Hong Kong in the Hong Kong Science Park in October.
The institute will focus on biological medicine, applied mathematics, and humanities and social sciences, with a plan to build world-leading labs and a goal of facilitating the research and application of leading-edge technologies.
The university also signed agreements in October with a number of universities in Hong Kong for cooperation in fields such as medical sciences, energy technology and biology.
The proximity to the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions is a geographical advantage for Sun Yat-sen University. Hong Kong is home to five of the world's top 100 universities and Sun Yat-sen University has close cooperation with universities there, said Gao Song, president of Sun Yat-sen University.
As one of the most open and economically dynamic regions of the country, the Greater Bay Area also enjoys the advantage of synergized policies, said Fu Zhengping, professor of the university's School of Business and dean of the Institute of Free Trade Zones.
The university will boost international exchanges and cooperation, continue to advance reforms, and foster a sound international environment to add new dynamics for turning the university into a world-class university with Chinese characteristics, Gao said.
Link to the report:
https://epaper.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202411/11/WS67314c91a3105c25b38eda04.html
https://epaper.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202411/11/WS67314c93a3105c25b38eda05.html
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