Xiangtan University

Xiangtan University, referred to as "Xiangda", is a comprehensive national key university and a national "double first-class" university initiated by the great leader Comrade Mao Zedong. The school was founded in 1958. On September 10 of the same year, Comrade Mao Zedong personally wrote the name of "Xiangtan University" and kindly asked "Xiangtan University must be run well". In 1974, Deng Xiaoping, Li Xiannian and other central leaders approved the reopening of Xiangtan University. In 1978, the school was identified by the State Council as one of the 16 comprehensive key universities of liberal arts, science and engineering in the country. In 1981, the school became one of the first batch of master's degree-granting institutions in the country. Since the reopening, Hua Guofeng, Jiang Zemin, Li Peng and other party and state leaders have attached great importance to and cared for the construction and development of the school. On September 6, 2018, General Secretary Xi Jinping made an important instruction to the school, hoping that Xiangtan University would take root in the hometown of the great man and strive to make the school better and more distinctive. In February 2022, the school was selected as a national "double first-class" construction university.

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Since its establishment, the school's comprehensive school-running strength and core competitiveness have steadily improved. It is a national "double first-class" construction university, a university jointly built by the People's Government of Hunan Province and the Ministry of Education, and a university jointly built by the People's Government of Hunan Province and the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. It is one of the few local universities in China that has entered authoritative international university rankings such as THE and USNEWS.

The school has a graduate school and 23 colleges and teaching departments. The disciplines cover 9 major categories including literature, history, philosophy, science, engineering, economics, management, law, and art. Mathematics is a world-class construction discipline. The ESI rankings of chemistry, materials science, engineering, and mathematics are among the top 1% of global universities and research institutions, and 7 disciplines are among the 2021 Soft Science World Class Discipline Rankings. There are 3 national key disciplines, 5 first-class construction disciplines in Hunan Province, 10 first-class cultivation disciplines in Hunan Province, and 4 national defense characteristic disciplines; there are 16 first-level discipline doctoral programs, 31 first-level discipline master programs, 19 master's professional degree categories, and 15 postdoctoral research mobile stations; there are 28 national first-class undergraduate professional construction points, 11 national characteristic majors, 1 national professional comprehensive reform pilot major, and 10 majors have passed the national engineering education professional certification.

The university has 1 National Center for Applied Mathematics, 1 National International Science and Technology Cooperation Base, 2 National-Local Joint Engineering Laboratories, and 1 National-Local Joint Engineering Research Center; 2 Key Research Bases for Humanities and Social Sciences of Higher Education Institutions of the Ministry of Education, 1 Research Base for the Innovation and Development of China's Red Tourism of the National Tourism Administration, 3 Key Laboratories of the Ministry of Education, and 2 Engineering Research Centers of the Ministry of Education; 1 Provincial and Ministerial Collaborative Innovation Center, 3 Hunan "2011 Collaborative Innovation Centers" and 2 Hunan Professional Characteristic Think Tanks; 4 Innovation Teams of the Ministry of Education, 5 Innovation Research Groups of Hunan Natural Science Foundation, 3 Hunan High-level Talent Aggregation Engineering Innovation Teams, and 8 Hunan University Science and Technology Innovation Teams; It is the first batch of national patent collaborative application pilot units, the first batch of national intellectual property information service centers of higher education institutions, and the first batch of intellectual property center construction units of higher education institutions in Hunan Province.

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The university currently has 1,645 full-time teachers, of which more than 76% have senior professional titles or doctoral degrees; 25% of the teachers have studied abroad. It has brought together a large number of high-level teachers and scientific research teams, including 5 dual-appointed academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, 1 overseas high-level talent, 4 candidates for the "Ten Thousand Talents Plan", 6 "Yangtze River Scholars", 4 winners of the National Outstanding Young Scholars and Excellent Young Scholars Fund, 4 national candidates for the "Million Talents Project", 4 national model teachers, 5 national outstanding teachers, 3 national teaching masters, 1 winner of the Feng Kang Scientific Computing Award, 2 national young talents in propaganda, ideology and culture, 1 national outstanding scientific and technological worker, 1 national intellectual property leader, 1 national patent information leader, and 1 second batch of Huang Danian-style teacher teams in national universities.

In recent years, the school has made outstanding achievements in the establishment of national projects, among which the number of national social science fund projects ranks among the top 26 universities in the country; the number of reprints and comprehensive index of social science papers by the National People's Congress have entered the top 3% of universities in the country; 7 think tanks have been selected into the China Think Tank Index (CTTI). The research results have won more than 120 awards at the ministerial and provincial levels, including the National Natural Science Award, the National Science and Technology Progress Award, the Ministry of Education's Outstanding Scientific Research Achievement Award for Higher Education Institutions, the Hunan Provincial Science and Technology Award, and the Hunan Provincial Social Science Outstanding Achievement Award. It has established high-level industry-university-research bases such as academician workstations and innovation research institutes. In the past five years, it has signed more than 1,600 industry-university-research cooperation projects and authorized 2,351 patents.

The school currently has 33,433 full-time students of various types, including 8,886 doctoral and master's students. It has 3 national experimental teaching demonstration centers, the Ministry of Education's Basic Discipline Outstanding Student Training Program 2.0 Base, the first batch of national outstanding legal talent education and training bases, the national talent training model innovation experimental zone, and the national college student cultural quality education base; it is the implementation unit of the "National College Student Innovative Experimental Program", the first batch of national demonstration universities for deepening innovation and entrepreneurship education reform, the national innovation and entrepreneurship typical experience university, and the national graduate employment typical experience university. Since its establishment, it has trained nearly 310,000 graduates, and a large number of outstanding alumni have emerged, making important contributions to national construction and social progress.

The international influence of the school is increasing day by day. It has established extensive exchanges and cooperation with more than 70 universities and research institutions in more than 20 countries and regions such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan, and has carried out more than 30 international cooperative training projects. It is a selected Chinese university in the "China-Africa University 20+20 Cooperation Plan" of the Ministry of Education and a selected university in the "Belt and Road" University Alliance. It cooperates with the University of León in Spain and Makerere University in Uganda to build Confucius Institutes.

"Shaofeng is high, Xiangshui is long, and it is a cultural resort and a hall of science and education..." The school will adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, thoroughly implement the spirit of the General Secretary's important instructions to Xiangtan University, carry forward the spirit of Xiangtan University of keeping in mind the instructions, hard work, and pursuit of excellence, take root in the hometown of great men to run a socialist university with Chinese characteristics, accelerate the construction of "Double First-Class", and make greater contributions to the realization of the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation! (Data deadline: March 29, 2022)