Prof. YANG Renshu
President, Vice Chancellor of USTB
Dear colleagues, students, and alumni at home and abroad:
As time passes and we wrap up an eventful 2019 while preparing to welcome the new year, I would like to take this opportunity to extend our greetings and best New Year’s wishes to all our faculty and staff members, students, retired personnel, alumni at home and abroad, and friends from all walks of life, on behalf of the University Party Committee, Administration, and University Chancellor WU Guilong.
In 2019, the faculty and students of USTB remained true to the nation’s aspirations and mission, and continued to work towards our common goals with dedication and enthusiasm. The year was marked by many noteworthy achievements and progress in many fields throughout USTB.
Our efforts at discipline construction and development continued to improve over the past year. We have worked to continually optimize USTB’s academic discipline structure, while this year the Institute of Artificial Intelligence commenced operations. In the QS World University Rankings 2020, USTB ranks 462nd worldwide and 20th nationwide. Seventeen of our disciplines are listed in the “Shanghai Ranking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects”, with metallurgical engineering ranking first worldwide. USTB ranks in the global top 1% for the first time in the research fields of the environment and ecology according to the Essential Science Indicators (ESI). Two of our disciplines, artificial intelligence and safety science and engineering, are included in the list of top disciplines for Beijing-based universities and colleges.
Our work in talent cultivation has seen much progress and many achievements. We have continued to address systemic reforms in education and teaching by assigning each freshman an exclusive supervisor as part of a comprehensive undergraduate mentorship program. We are happy to announce that 1,187 students obtained national and provincial-level honors, 2,124 graduates enrolled in prestigious universities at home and abroad for further study, and 234 graduates went to contribute to the development of regions in western China. Meanwhile more students continue to work towards their dreams. Our students’ progress and achievements have always represented the greatest work USTB has achieved to date!
Our faculty has become more progressive and dynamic. By continuously adhering to our strategy of “strengthening the university through talents”, we have witnessed numerous achievements in 2019. Prof. ZHANG Yue was elected to be an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, while Prof. LIU Huanming was elected to be an academician of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. Academician MAO Xinping, a USTB alum, became a tenured USTB professor. We have seen new faces join us as well, including two newly recruited global expert talents, seven winners of the national “Ten-thousand Talents Program”, 10 national-level young talents, and five talents with the title “Prestigious Teacher of Beijing”. The joint efforts of the faculty have contributed to following the original aspirations and mission of USTB to enhance morality and foster innovative talents. We thank all of you for your hard work and efforts!
Achievements in scientific and technological innovation have continued to add to USTB’s reputation for excellence. We have continued to focus on large-scale platforms and teams as well as major programs, resulting in a number of signifcant achievements. As a result, in 2019 USTB was recognized as a Key Area Innovative Team by the Ministry of Science and Technology for the first time, and awarded the National Foundation Innovative Group Program for the first time. In addition, we founded one new national research base, and commenced one new major National Natural Science Foundation of China project as well as three new National Key Research and Development projects. USTB won three National Science & Technology Awards, three first prizes of Scientific Research Outstanding Achievement Awards in Higher Institutions by the Ministry of Education, and two scientific and technological achievements were on display during the parade for the 70th Anniversary of the Founding of our nation. Our research funding exceeded 1 billion RMB, an increase of 25% compared with 2018.
International cooperation has deepened and expanded. We remain committed to promoting our development strategy of fostering international cooperation. As a result, we have established partnerships with six overseas institutions including the National University of Singapore and the University of Munich. By focusing on various industries and the national economy, we have established strategic partnerships with 10 institutions including China First Heavy Industries and the National Museum of China.
Our social influence continues to increase. We saw many instances of our university’s outstanding reputation highlighted in the mainstream media; CCTV, the People’s Daily, and the Guangming Daily reported on our work and achievements over 100 times. Thanks to our preliminary efforts an increasing USTB’s media exposure, our university ranks sixth place nationwide among online university opinion influencers. We embraced the mission of poverty alleviation, helping the people of Qin’an county by offering them support in areas of education, industry and science & technology. Additionally, we have repeatedly received excellent feedback from our alumni in various industries. One alumnus, YIN Xuejun, directed the design of the tuned mass damper for vortex-induced vibration mitigation, which guaranteed the successful construction of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. The HBIS Serbia Executive team, led by alumnus ZHAO Jun, was honored with the title of “Model of Our Time” by the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee. Our alumni continue to strongly represent USTB both in those grand-scale projects and designing of advanced equipment for the country through their hard work and striking achievements!
Party building efforts have continued apace. We spared no efforts to solve more than 30 issues and problems that our students and faculty were concerned about, while continuing to maintain our education work efforts. Meanwhile we have worked to strengthen Party leadership and capabilities throughout the school in order to motivate each cadre to work harder and assume greater responsibility. Throughout the year we carried out patriotic education in anticipation of the 70th anniversary celebration of the Founding of the nation, in order to express our sincere appreciation for our motherland.
The year 2020 marks the end of the 13th “Five-Year Plan”, and sees the next steps as we work towards building a prosperous society as well as launching new efforts for building a modern socialist nation. In 2020, we should carry out our university’s mission of cultivating first-rate talents, make greater contributions to society, and providing excellence in higher education. We will continue to press hard in our “Double First-Class” construction efforts by adhering to the spirit of USTB by “Pursuing Excellence and Seeking Truth and Innovation”.
We wish you a happy New Year, good health, happiness for your family, and good luck in all your endeavors!
We wish an ever greater and brighter future for USTB!
Finally, we wish for a more prosperous and powerful China in the years to come!
