There are no classes on Fridays. This new university
Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, has recently added another university - the Ministry of Education has agreed to set up Shenzhen University of Technology. It looks like just another "university of science and technology", but as a "test field" for new research universities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Shenzhen University of Technology's ambition is not only to "replicate" but also to "integrate" a new world for cultivating high-end innovative talents.
Shenzhen University of Technology has a distinct mark of a scientific research institute. In November 2018, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Shenzhen Municipal People's Government signed a cooperative education agreement, deciding to jointly build Shenzhen University of Technology based on the scientific research and industrial resources of the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The Institute of Advanced Technology, founded in 2006, is not a research institute in the traditional sense, but a new type of scientific research institution that is managed by a board of directors and is committed to exploring institutional and mechanism innovation. Its reference system is a world-class industrial research institute, which means that the research work of the Institute of Advanced Technology must not only have academic breakthroughs, but also face the market to solve industrial problems. Over the past 18 years, the number of international patent applications of the Institute of Advanced Technology has ranked first among universities and institutes in the world for three consecutive years, and it has incubated nearly 2,000 companies.
Relying on such a scientific and technological institution, Shenzhen University of Technology also aims at the in-depth integration of scientific research resources, industrial resources and teaching and educating people.
In terms of scientific research resources, the three national key laboratories of Medical Imaging Science and Technology Systems, Quantitative Synthetic Biology, and Integrated Circuit Materials built by the Institute of Advanced Technology, as well as national innovation centers such as the National High-Performance Medical Device Innovation Center, the National Biomanufacturing Industry Innovation Center, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area National Technology Innovation Center Branch, and the two large scientific facilities for synthetic biology research and brain science located in Shenzhen Guangming Science City will all become important scientific research and teaching bases for Shenzhen University of Technology.
In terms of industrial resources, as the city with the highest industrial output value and industrial added value in 2023, Shenzhen's developed high-tech industries provide broad space for the transfer and transformation of scientific research results of universities. Incubators and industrial parks such as the Shenzhen Engineering Biological Industry Innovation Center and the Shenzhen Brain Science and Technology Industry Innovation Center, which are led by the Institute of Advanced Technology, provide a "training ground" for cultivating practical talents.
"The integration of industry and education, science and education is the natural endowment and unique advantage of Shenzhen University of Technology," said Fan Jianping, director of the preparatory office of Shenzhen University of Technology and founding dean of the Institute of Advanced Technology.
When it comes to the majors of science and engineering universities, many people can count them on their fingers: mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, environmental materials, civil machinery, computing information... It is already so rich, is there anything new?
The answer from Shenzhen University of Technology is yes. On the one hand, it focuses on the long-term construction of "new engineering" and "new medicine", and on the other hand, it fully considers the strategic emerging industries and future industrial development needs of the Greater Bay Area. The first keyword of the professional setting of this university is "cross". It can be said that the seven professional colleges, including the School of Life and Health, the School of Synthetic Biology, the School of Computer Science and Control Engineering, the School of Biomedical Engineering, the School of Materials Science and Energy Engineering, the School of Pharmacy, and the School of Computing Power Microelectronics, are all "added".
Not only cross-disciplinary settings, but also differentiated development. Fan Jianping introduced that at present, each department of the school includes multiple disciplines. Taking the School of Life and Health, which is based on brain science, as an example, in addition to the traditional biology department, there are also three cross-disciplinary departments: the Department of Neurobiology, the Center for Intelligent Cross-Science, and Mental Health and Public Health. The training program of each department connects biology with mathematics, physics, chemistry and even engineering. Considering that Shenzhen will accelerate the development of strategic emerging industries such as high-end medical devices and biomedicine, and future industries such as synthetic biology, brain science and brain-like intelligence, the professional training program of the college has made great efforts to respond to the problems and needs in these fields.
Even better, the campus design of this new university also reflects "intersection and integration". According to Zhao Wei, deputy director of the preparatory office of Shenzhen University of Technology and former president of the University of Macau, each college will not have a fixed office building. 25 teachers can organize a teaching and research unit equipped with corresponding laboratories, offices, and conference rooms. Teachers of different majors can be freely combined: "The neighbors of those who study artificial intelligence may be those who study drugs, and those who study computer science and synthetic biology will use the same elevator every day."
According to the school's plan, the way the library displays books is also different from that of traditional libraries. Zhao Wei said that they want to achieve "one shelf, two subjects", putting books of different subjects and fields on the same shelf, hoping that teachers and students can roam among them and have more innovative sparks in their minds.
It is understood that Shenzhen University of Technology will recruit undergraduate students for the first time in the fall of 2024.
In order to cultivate talents with a more complete quality structure, "professional colleges and basic academies" have become the choice of many universities to reform their training methods, and Shenzhen University of Technology is no exception. However, they have also introduced the training system of the Institute of Advanced Technology, and built a three-dimensional collaborative education model of "college, college, and research institute": the college carries out education and teaching with subject knowledge as the core, the research institute provides practical teaching support with scientific research platforms and industrial resources, and the college is concerned with the cultivation of students' comprehensive qualities.
"The goal of Shenzhen University of Technology is to cultivate outstanding scientists, excellent engineers, and innovative entrepreneurs." Fan Jianping said that according to the existing plan, undergraduate students of Shenzhen University of Technology will receive general education in the college in their freshman year and rotate training in three different types of laboratories; they will determine their majors in their sophomore year; they can independently choose between academic track, engineering track, and entrepreneurial track in their junior year; and the senior year is the time for scientific research practice, industrial internships, and innovative entrepreneurship.
In addition to the four-year macro timetable, Shenzhen University of Technology also made two unique attempts.
——No classes on Fridays. Every Friday, the school will not arrange classes, and students will "immerse" in the laboratory. During the four years of undergraduate study, we strive to allow students to spend about 20% of their time immersed in the exploration atmosphere of high-level scientific research platforms such as national key laboratories and key laboratories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and to shape students' innovative consciousness through invisible influence and detailed training.
——Give students two transcripts. Every student at Shenzhen University of Technology will have two transcripts, one for academic education and one for quality education. The academic transcript reflects the course learning situation, while the quality education transcript reflects the degree of improvement in the student's personal qualities such as patriotism, self-exploration, and service to society over the past four years, encouraging students to be "big people".
Looking at the world, there are many universities that run scientific research institutions, but few scientific research institutions that run universities. The mission of Shenzhen University of Technology is to explore a new path for the development and growth of a new type of research university. Fan Jianping said: "The success of such a university is determined by whether the integration of industry and education is good or not, and whether the integration of science and education is deep."
