2025-10-26
Recently, Nankai University officially released the Nankai University Emerging Engineering Education Development Plan. Drawing on national requirements for emerging engineering education, the university carried out in-depth research, extensive consultations and broad consensus-building to map out a systematic roadmap for its future development in this area. The release of the plan marks an important step for Nankai in implementing the master plan for building China into an educational powerhouse, deepening comprehensive reform in higher education, and taking the lead in integrated advancement and upgrading of emerging engineering education.
Xinhua News Agency recently interviewed Zhu Shoufei, Vice President of Nankai University, on the foundations, objectives, key tasks and innovative highlights of the university’s emerging engineering education plan, with the aim of presenting Nankai’s development roadmap and future vision in this field.
Q1: In what ways is Nankai University’s emerging engineering education initiative “new”?
Zhu Shoufei: The “newness” of Nankai University’s emerging engineering education lies in its deep alignment with the needs of the times, strategic imperatives and trends in educational transformation. This is reflected in four core dimensions:
First, it is new in that it is anchored at the forefront of the times. Today, frontier technologies such as quantum information, space and aeronautics, new energy and new materials are advancing rapidly and reshaping global industrial structures and competitive dynamics. The new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation has raised entirely new requirements for engineers’ knowledge, skills and overall qualities. Nankai’s development of emerging engineering education is both an active response to this historical call and a key move to support China’s drive to become a manufacturing powerhouse and to serve the national strategy of high-level scientific and technological self-reliance.
Second, it is new in that it follows the latest guiding thoughts. Nankai’s emerging engineering initiative is closely aligned with the major decisions of the 20th CPC National Congress on “accelerating the development of national strategic talent forces” and “striving to cultivate outstanding engineers”, and is guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. It takes “serving national strategies and leading future development” as its fundamental orientation. Emerging engineering at Nankai is not about simply adding programs or stacking courses, but about a systemic and transformative reform of education and teaching. It represents Nankai’s conscious commitment to serving national strategies, aiming to provide strong talent support for overcoming bottlenecks in critical areas and to inject “Nankai strength” into the Chinese path to modernization.
Third, it is new in breaking through existing paradigms. Guided by major national strategic needs and real industrial problems, we leverage the multidisciplinary strengths of a comprehensive university. By dismantling disciplinary silos, restructuring curricula and optimizing teaching models, we are exploring an end-to-end innovation pathway that shifts from knowledge transmission to capability formation, from single disciplines to cross-disciplinary integration, and from theory-led approaches to practice-oriented applications. This will help build an open, collaborative, cross-border and innovation-driven ecosystem for emerging engineering education, providing a broader platform for both talent training and research innovation.
Fourth, it is new in building distinctive models. Nankai’s emerging engineering education will focus on core technologies for future industries and frontiers of sustainable development, making strategic deployments in areas such as cognitive science, new materials creation, energy and environment, and electrical and information engineering. Driven by major national strategic needs and large-scale scientific projects, the university will integrate high-quality resources across society, serve the development of new quality productive forces at a high level, and accelerate the building of an emerging engineering education system at Nankai that is “distinctive, strong in advantages and outstanding in contribution”.
Q2: The plan mentions four key tasks for Nankai’s emerging engineering education. Could you elaborate on these?
Zhu Shoufei: Nankai’s emerging engineering initiative will be advanced in a holistic and innovative manner, focusing on four core directions: innovating talent training models, optimizing disciplinary and program layouts, enhancing research and innovation practice, and deepening reform of differentiated talent evaluation.
In terms of talent cultivation innovation, the university will take fostering virtue and nurturing talents as its fundamental task, guided by the “spirit of patriotism” to steer the “body of engineering”, break away from the path dependency of traditional engineering talent cultivation, establish a new concept of cultivating outstanding engineering talents in a comprehensive university, promote the systematic restructuring of the curriculum system, teaching models, and evaluation methods, and achieve a holistic, interdisciplinary, and innovative cultivation of engineering talents. In terms of optimizing disciplinary structure, the university will be guided by technological advancement and national strategic needs, establishing new emerging engineering disciplines that serve urgent national strategies and integrate foundational sciences with emerging engineering fields. Through deepening interdisciplinary convergence, the institution will systematically advance the complementarity between science and engineering, foster medical-engineering integration, and strengthen AI’s enabling role in interdisciplinary collaboration. It aims to achieve groundbreaking outcomes in artificial intelligence, new energy, new materials, and nuclear fusion, thereby cultivating new drivers for future technological and industrial development. In terms of enhancing innovation in scientific research practice, the university will target major national strategic needs and key economic and social development fronts, identifying and formulating scientific questions from real-world industrial challenges and technological bottlenecks to cultivate cutting-edge research topics. Meanwhile, it will strengthen the outcome-oriented approach, striving to produce landmark achievements with practical application value and expediting their translation and transfer. These efforts will tangibly enhance the capacity of Nankai’s engineering disciplines to serve industrial upgrading and bolster regional development. In terms of reforming the classified evaluation of talent, the university will establish a system for talent recruitment, cultivation, and assessment that aligns with the characteristics of emerging engineering education development. First, it will create dedicated talent channels tailored to the features of engineering, expand avenues for attracting and nurturing talent, explore new models for high-level experts to hold joint appointments with the university and enterprises, and increase the introduction of "Industry Professors". Second, it will formulate a talent evaluation system adapted to the distinct nature of emerging engineering education, accelerate the implementation of engineering evaluation standards marked by projects, products and commercialization of results, and explore differentiated appointment mechanisms.
Q3: What are the highlights of Nankai’s emerging engineering initiative?
Zhu Shoufei: The core highlight of Nankai’s emerging engineering initiative is the high-standard construction of an Academy of Outstanding Engineers and the high-starting-point development of a Nankai-characteristic base for emerging engineering. We will establish a “1-2-3-4” linkage pattern: first, build one Academy of Outstanding Engineers to coordinate emerging engineering education and lead talent cultivation and discipline development; second, lay out a number of key directions aligned with future industries; third, establish several high-level cross-disciplinary innovation platforms, university–industry–research collaboration platforms and international cooperation platforms; and fourth, form a full-chain talent training system spanning undergraduate education, postgraduate education and continuing education. By systematically advancing these reform measures, we aim to attract outstanding students, bring together excellent mentors, coordinate high-quality projects and build robust platforms, thereby creating a healthy ecosystem and a strong brand for talent cultivation in emerging engineering.
Q4: As a comprehensive university, what advantages and foundations does Nankai have, compared with specialized engineering institutions, in developing emerging engineering education?
Zhu Shoufei: As a comprehensive, research-intensive university with a complete range of academic disciplines, Nankai University possesses unique advantages and a solid foundation in advancing the development of emerging engineering education, distinct from traditional engineering institutions, which are primarily reflected in three aspects:
First, its disciplinary ecosystem is highly cross-integrated, giving it a natural advantage of “strengthening engineering with science”. Over many years of development, Nankai has developed a distinctive profile featuring a strong balance between the humanities and sciences, solid foundations and an emphasis on application and innovation. Foundational disciplines such as mathematics and chemistry are strong, and interdisciplinary fields related to engineering are vibrant, forming an interactive ecosystem of “basic disciplines + engineering + emerging interdisciplinary areas”. This gives Nankai a clear first-mover advantage and sustained endogenous momentum in enabling mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and other basic disciplines to empower the upgrading of traditional engineering and to support emerging engineering initiatives.
Second, it has a solid foundation of research and an outstanding tradition of serving national strategies. Nankai has accumulated strong capabilities in engineering and related interdisciplinary fields, consistently guided by major national strategic needs and focused on tackling key core technologies. It has produced a number of internationally influential achievements in areas such as catalytic chemistry, electrochemical energy storage, environmental governance and advanced manufacturing, and has made a series of major research breakthroughs in emerging domains such as photovoltaic materials and cells, cyber security, computer vision and AI-based control, demonstrating strong capabilities in research breakthroughs and systems integration.
Third, it has a strong platform system that provides concrete support for collaborative innovation. Nankai has established a high-level research platform system covering major science and engineering fields. It currently hosts a number of national and provincial key laboratories, engineering centers and collaborative innovation centers in areas such as specialty chemical power sources, optoelectronic information materials and integrated circuits. These platforms are not only carriers for original innovation and key technology development, but also systemic supports for promoting disciplinary integration, industry-education integration and talent cultivation. They provide a solid institutional foundation and an open, collaborative innovation environment for the university’s emerging engineering initiatives.
Q5: What disciplines and programs have Nankai already deployed under its emerging engineering initiative?
Zhu Shoufei: In terms of disciplinary and programme layout, Nankai has formed a sound landscape for emerging engineering that is systematic, strategically focused and deeply aligned with regional development.
First, the program system has taken shape. Currently, Nankai has systematically laid out 10 first-level disciplines, 6 professional degree categories and 18 undergraduate engineering programs under the engineering discipline category. It has established 11 emerging engineering specialized classes at the undergraduate level and three outstanding classes, with related disciplines and programs housed in 11 specialized colleges, thus providing a solid disciplinary foundation and training platform for emerging engineering.
Second, the strength of core disciplines is prominent. Materials Science and Engineering has been selected as a ‘Double First-Class” construction discipline; five undergraduate programs have passed national engineering program accreditation; Materials Science and Engineering, Engineering Science and Environment and Ecology have entered the global top 0.1% in the ESI rankings; and the School of Software has been included in the first batch of national exemplary software schools.
Third, its orientation towards regional service is clear. Nankai’s emerging engineering disciplinary and program layout is closely aligned with national strategies such as the coordinated development of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region and the development of the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area, and is deeply integrated into Tianjin’s industrial ecosystem and regional development landscape. In areas such as intelligent manufacturing, artificial intelligence, information security, new energy, green chemical engineering and biomedicine, the university tightly binds disciplines with key industries in a two-way supporting manner, injecting momentum into high-quality interregional economic development while continually enhancing its capacity to serve national regional development strategies.
Q6: How will Nankai build an emerging engineering talent training model with distinct Nankai characteristics?
Zhu Shoufei: Nankai University will systematically develop a distinctive emerging engineering education model aligned with the goal of cultivating "interdisciplinary, innovative, and strategic" talent, advancing this through the following five pathways: Restructuring the Emerging Engineering Curriculum to Strengthen Interdisciplinary Integration. Leveraging the strengths of its comprehensive educational foundation, the university will integrate AI with engineering education. Through a "major + micro-degree" model, it will establish an industry-education integrated, interdisciplinary, and resource-sharing emerging engineering curriculum, creating future-oriented classrooms. Deepening Engineering Education Reform to Align with National Strategies. Focusing on major national strategic needs such as "Manufacturing Power," "Digital China," and carbon neutrality, the university will enhance professional degree programs in engineering that align with industry standards and trends. It will build a high-level "dual-mentor" guidance system composed of academic supervisors and industry experts, strengthening students' practical engineering capabilities and their ability to systematically address complex engineering challenges, thereby supplying high-quality engineering talent for strategic national fields. Refining the Talent Development Mechanism with a Research-Driven Approach. By optimizing the training system and implementing a broad-category engineering education model, the university will support early undergraduate entry into research teams and participation in cutting-edge projects, fostering high-level emerging engineering talent with sustainable innovative capabilities. Establishing Innovative Practical Training Platforms for Immersive Education. Deepening strategic partnerships with large central state-owned enterprises, public companies, and industry leaders, the university will deploy faculty to enterprises to expand project sources for emerging engineering initiatives. Utilizing platforms such as the Tiankai Park and Haihe Laboratory, it will jointly develop practice-oriented teaching and training bases aligned with industrial frontiers. By focusing on "real environments, real projects, and real challenges," it will comprehensively enhance students' engineering innovation and practical skills. Building an Innovation and Entrepreneurship Ecosystem to Empower Students. The university will fully implement the College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program, create an integrated curriculum-competition innovation practice platform, and introduce social resources to support innovation and entrepreneurship, empowering students to grow through addressing authentic challenges.
Q7: In terms of research and innovation, what breakthrough areas has Nankai identified as priorities under its emerging engineering initiative?
Zhu Shoufei: First, we will deepen efforts to transform core technologies. Targeting major national and regional strategic needs and key technological demands of industry, we will leverage the multi-disciplinary strengths of a comprehensive university to promote the translation of key technological breakthroughs into engineering applications and industrial development. Second, we will focus on frontier cross-disciplinary research and concentrate resources on major leading research projects in areas such as AI+, quantum information, advanced materials, green energy and life and health. Third, we will reinforce integrated innovation across industry, academia, research and application by improving demand-driven technology innovation systems, building strong university-industry-research cooperation bases and joint research platforms, and carrying out collaborative innovation around critical issues in industrial technology. This will help translate results from applied science research into real-world use and empower the development of new quality productive forces.
Q8: Under the framework of Nankai’s distinctive emerging engineering initiative, how does the faculty and talent team be advanced?
Zhu Shoufei: On the one hand, we will accelerate both the quality improvement and expansion of our emerging engineering faculty team. Nankai will establish a special talent zone for emerging engineering, implement more open and flexible recruitment policies, and actively explore university–enterprise co-education mechanisms to attract high-level faculty with engineering practice experience, industrial backgrounds and international perspectives. On the other hand, we will improve the support system for emerging engineering talent development by improving differentiated evaluation and incentive mechanisms for faculty, and by evaluating comprehensive contributions in teaching, research and social service. At the same time, we will improve mechanisms for technology transfer and intellectual property management, building a full-process transfer service system from research achievements to industrial deployment. This will ensure that our frontier scientific and technological achievements align precisely with industrial needs and are rapidly transformed into real productive forces, forming a virtuous cycle of “talent cultivation–research innovation–results transfer”.
(Source: Xinhua News Client)
