Headed by Mr. Yang Jiafu, academician of the CAS, an expert group came to USTC to evaluate the feasibility of the Tenth Five-year USTC Development Plan and the construction work under Project 211 at USTC. The experts approved of the report on the feasibility and the plan to purchase large research equipment and offered their constructive suggestions. Deputy Party secretary of Anhui Province and vice-chairman of the Anhui People's Political Consultative Conference, Mr. Fang Zhaoxiang and Party secretary of USTC, Mr. Tang Honggao delivered their speeches at the opening ceremony. USTC president Zhu Qingshi made a working report on the feasibility of the construction items under the Tenth Five-year USTC Development Plan and Project 211 at USTC. Leading cadres from the Office of Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council, the China Academic Degrees and Graduate Education Developing Centre, the Bureau of Personnel Education of the CAS, and the Anhui Provincial Education Department participated in the evaluation symposium with the expert group.
The People's Government of Nanhui District of Shanghai and the University of Science and Technology of China are to co-establish the Shanghai Graduate School of USTC. The local government will provide 100 hectares of land and 0.2 billion RMB yuan for the preparations for the project and will be responsible for the construction of all the necessary infrastructural facilities. The University will be responsible for the education of the postgraduate students and the building of the staff team. Under the supervision of the board of directors, the graduate school will be a non-profit institution for higher education financially assisted by non-governmental organizations. The president will take care of its daily management.
To strengthen the international exchange & cooperation and contact with Chinese scholars in Europe, USTC Party secretary Tang Honggao led a delegation to 6 world renowned universities and 2 research centers in 4 countries, namely, Cambridge University, Oxford University and the University of Nottingham in Britain, the University of Stuttgart and Berlin University of Technology in Germany, the CNRS and the University of Paris-Sud in France and the International Center for Theoretical Physics in Italy. During their visit, Mr. Tang Honggao had friendly talks with the persons in charge of the universities and research centers and some Chinese scholars in these countries.
Achievements have been made in the building of key disciplines at USTC. Altogether 19 disciplines, including basic mathematics, have been officially named as state key disciplines and 19 disciplines, including computational mathematics, have been chosen as the key disciplines for Anhui Province. The number of key disciplines at USTC ranks 8th nationwide and the increasing ratio tops all other Chinese universities.
USTC is among the top Chinese universities when counting the number of research papers published in 2001. 880 papers were included by SCI, ranking 4th nationwide, 391 papers by IE, ranking 6th nationwide and 167 papers by ISTP, ranking 9th nationwide. Altogether 647 papers were cited 1463 times, ranking 4th for all Chinese universities. Of all the papers by Prof. Fan Hongyi, 46 papers were included by SCI and his papers were cited 146 times, taking the 1st position for the field of physics in China.
A conference was held at USTC to award staff for their teaching and other achievements and to celebrate the 44th anniversary of the founding of the University. Awardees included receivers of state, ministerial and provincial prizes, writers of papers published in key academic journals home and abroad and newly-authorized patent right owners. Research funds were granted to key and important research projects at USTC to back up further progress and the receivers of state and provincial teaching achievements were awarded at the conference.
Recruitment of postgraduate students has further expanded and the comprehensive quality of undergraduates was regarded among the best of all Chinese universities in 2002. In all, 3838 students, including 455 doctoral students, 1267 masters students, 254 masters students of soft engineering and 1862 undergraduates, were recruited. 75.6% of all the graduates from USTC were admitted by universities home and abroad as postgraduate students and the employment situation for USTC graduates kept an optimistic tendency in 2002.
The USTC robot teams entered the first national TV robot games for university students and pocketed the prizes for champion and runners-up of the match. As the representative for the Chinese robot teams, it won both the runner-up prize and the excellent robotic technologies prize in the first Robocon sponsored by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union.
Celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the cooperation and exchange between USTC and Tokyo University, the 10th anniversary of the Sino-Japanese Core Universities Program and Sino-Japanese University Presidents' Forum were held at USTC.
USTC Innovation Shares-holding Co., Ltd. went public on the Shanghai Stock Exchange Market.