The Department of Mathematics at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) has been listed into the second batch of the Double First-Class Initiative, according to a list released by the Ministry of Education yesterday.
The Double First-Class Initiative, or the construction of world-class universities and first-class disciplines, is a major commitment made by the Chinese Government to adapt to changes in the educational environment at home and abroad.
This is the first time for a local university in Shenzhen and the youngest university in China to be listed into the national plan designed to lift the status and standing and international competitiveness of China’s higher education system.
SUSTech’s mathematics department was founded in 2015 and it consists of three disciplines, namely basic mathematics, computing and applied mathematics, and financial mathematics focusing on 12 research fields.
The department enjoys having outstanding faculty members, with most members having tenured positions in leading universities in the U.S., Canada, Australia and other European countries. Most of the junior faculty members have multiple years of teaching and research experience overseas, after receiving their degrees in some of the world’s top universities.
The Shenzhen National Center for Applied Mathematics, inaugurated at SUSTech in 2020, is one of the first batch of 13 national mathematics centers in China. It is hosted by SUSTech and jointly built by Shenzhen University, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen and China Electronics Technology Group Corp.
The center placed its research focus on the application of mathematical disciplines and key technical issues that meet the nation’s major strategic needs while supporting the industrial innovation of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and Shenzhen’s construction of a pilot demonstration area of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
It has also put effort on four core fields, namely internet information, precision medicine, financial technology and digital economy, and has developed research on supercomputing and fast algorithm through cooperation with Shenzhen’s tech giants such as Huawei, Tencent, Mindray and BGI. The center aims to make breakthroughs in key applied mathematics technologies and become a center of applied technologies integrating talent cultivation, scientific research and industrial services.
SUSTech, established in December 2010, was ranked the top young university in China in THE’s (Times Higher Education) Young Universities Ranking 2021.