University continues innovative legacy with top talent and outstanding alumni

The University of Science and Technology of China, or USTC, is devoted to continuously consolidating the country's strengths in science and technology and is one of the nation's most prominent universities.

USTC was established in 1958 in Beijing and is the youngest member of the C9 league, an elite alliance comprising nine Chinese universities, equivalent to the Ivy League.

At a time when the young People's Republic of China urgently needed to strengthen scientific research but lacked qualified talent, USTC took on the responsibility of serving as a talent pool for the research and development of atom bombs, missiles and satellites.

With the unswerving efforts of its first generation of professors, including Qian Xuesen, Hua Luogeng and Yan Jici, who were China's top scientists, USTC saw rapid development in its first eight years.

During that time the university taught more than 5,300 undergraduates. Among them, 36 became academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering, the country's top science and engineering bodies. More than 20 others became scientist generals in the army.

Most graduates devoted themselves to China's budding science and technology research fields.

In 1970, USTC moved to Hefei, the capital of East China's Anhui province, and embarked on a new development path.

In 1978, USTC initiated a program called the "Special Class for the Gifted Young", or the "Junior Class", which offers gifted youths the opportunity to skip a few years of middle and high school and get an early start in college.

In the same year, the university also founded the nation's first school of graduates, making the education system more complete.

The two moves were supported by the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, who took charge of the country's science and education affairs after the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), which stalled the country's scientific development.

USTC allows its students to graduate in advance, provided that they are able to pass certain evaluations.

In the 1980s and 1990s, key universities in China saw graduate enrollment rates of less than 10 percent, while roughly half of USTC students passed graduate enrollment exams for universities at home and abroad.

A report released by the Beijing-based USTC Initiative Foundation, which is believed to be the largest unofficial USTC alumni organization, showed that more than 1,000 Chinese-born professors working in overseas universities received education at USTC, with more than 700 of them teaching in the United States.

Another report by USTC said that nearly 500 USTC alumni were now working in Wall Street.

Most of the alumni received undergraduate education at USTC, which has educated more than 50,000 undergraduates in the past 56 years.

"The data is just one example of USTC's international influence and that is just a fraction of our many brilliant alumni.

"A larger number of them are now working in the top universities and academic institutions in China," said Liu Zhifeng, secretary general of the USTCIF. He said that many other alumni devoted themselves to other work like running high-tech companies at home and abroad.

Some people jokingly called USTC a US training center but "brain drain is not our top concern, as we should by no means interfere with the graduates' own choices," said Jiang Yi, former dean of the academic affairs office.

"What we care about most is how to give the gifted young students the education they deserve, no matter where they will go after graduation" he said.

With the rapid development of the Chinese economy and the improving conditions for scientific research, more and more overseas experts are attracted to USTC.

In recent years, China started a series of programs to attract prominent immigrant scientists and engineers.

These included the Recruitment Program of Global Experts launched by the central government in 2008. It aimed to attract about 2,000 high-level experts from overseas to support the country's key universities, labs and enterprises, within five to 10 years.

USTC attracted nearly 50 such experts with the RPGE, the most among all domestic universities, and many more with other programs.

Most of the other regularly recruited teaching staff are also returnees from the world's top universities.

"The professors are attracted not merely by the abundant research funds offered to them, but more importantly the greatly improved scientific facilities," said Hou Jianguo, president of USTC. USTC is the only university in China with two national laboratories, the National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory and the Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale. There are about 20 of these state-of-the-art facilities in the country.

"Now USTC enjoys the leading position in the world in various areas of scientific research, including iron-based high-temperature superconductors, quantum communication, advanced fusion energy and plasma science and fire safety science," according to the president.

Contact the writer at zhulixin@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 09/19/2014 page31)