The General Office of the People’s Government of Guangdong Province has recently printed and issued the “Implementation Plan (2021-2025) for Higher Education to Strive for First Class, Shore up Weak Spots and Strengthen Features” with the list of higher institutions for the new round of enhancement plan (2021-2025) for higher education to “strive for first class, shore up weak spots and strengthen features” being released together. There are 47 public higher institutions being elected.
Among which, Dongguan University of Technology has been successfully elevated from the previous round of “striving for first class, shoring up weak spots and strengthening features” as a characteristic university to a University of Guangdong Province High Level University Key Discipline Construction Program. It has made substantial achievements in building itself as a demonstration university of new type of high-level technology university. The university will regard “striving for first class” as a goal, develop by aligning with the country’s “double first-class initiative” and construct peak disciplines with strong source innovation capability to form strategic technology forces driving high-level basic research.
In 2018, the work plan of “striving for first class, shoring up weak spots and strengthening features” and the capital arrangement plan had been delivered and approved at the executive meeting of the People’s Government of Guangdong Province. A series of higher education development plans had been integrated into three development plans, forming “high level university development plan”, “rejuvenation plan for higher institutions in eastern, western and northern Guangdong” and “enhancement plan for characteristic universities”, encouraging higher institutions to strive for first class and characteristic development at different levels. In the same year, Dongguan University of Technology was elected in the “enhancement plan for characteristic universities” with its three disciplines mechanical engineering, material science and engineering and cyberspace security being elected as key construction disciplines.
The leading position of its disciplines has also been consolidated. Over the past five years, the university has been constantly strengthening awareness of discipline construction, enhancing leading position of its disciplines and bringing into play the role of discipline construction in resource allocation according to the progress of development of new type of technology university. It has made it clear to blaze a discipline development path with its own features by serving demands of major national strategies and local development.
Continuous optimization has been made in discipline layout and structure. To address the demand for industrial development in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the university has been giving priority to the three discipline clusters of intelligent manufacturing, green low-carbon and innovative services. It has established a discipline layout with engineering as the core and coordinated development of multiple disciplines such as management, arts, science, economics, law and education. The university has selected 16 university-level key disciplines and its material science and engineering, cyberspace security and mechanical engineering are listed as key development disciplines under the “striving for first class, shoring up weak spots and strengthening features” program of higher institutions in Guangdong. Its engineering science and material science rank ESI global top 1%. The university has fundamentally formed a discipline major system with high correlation between discipline chain and industry chain and close compatibility between key disciplines and dominant industries.
The discipline system of the university is being constantly improved. Pivoting around establishing and improving discipline management system and mechanism, the university has gradually established and enhanced a long-term mechanism for discipline construction. It has launched “1+3” institutional documents, namely, “Implementation Opinions on Advancing Construction of Discipline Clusters”, “Measures on Development and Management of School-Level Key Disciplines”, “Measures on Selection and Management of Leaders of Key Disciplines” and “Measures on Management of Expenditure for Discipline Construction”. These documents serve to clarify aspects such as guiding principles, management and operation, contents, performance evaluation and organization and leadership for development of discipline clusters and disciplines. Thus, an institutional foundation for healthy development of disciplines has been laid.
Prominent effects have been achieved in introduction and nurturing of discipline teams. The university has been insisting on “stabilizing the existing and introducing the new” and “combination of introduction and nurturing”. Special measures have been adopted to introduce a batch of high-level talents and innovation and entrepreneurship teams from around the world with an active presence in the frontier of international academia, industry front lines and master of critical technologies in the field of intelligent manufacturing. In the past five years, the university has established a high-level teaching and research team by introducing over 700 high-level talents and excellent youth PhD holders from home and abroad. The university is among the top in the province regarding increase of high-end talents with fundamental changes taking place in the size, structure and quality of its teaching personnel. The university has realized zero breakthrough in leading talents under “National Hundred, Thousand and Ten Thousand Talent Program”, “Pearl River Talent Program” and “Pearl River Scholar”. The university has established a postdoctoral innovation practice base with totally 130 postdoctoral researchers being introduced in and outside China.
Important progress has been achieved in construction of discipline platforms. The university has built 24 various provincial-level research platforms such as Guangdong Key Laboratory, 36 city-level research platforms such as Dongguan Key Laboratory, 45 research institutes such as school-level research centers and laboratories, and 406 off-campus internship bases. Nearly 700 million yuan had been invested in building new type of research institute – Institute of Science & Technology Innovation, Dongguan University of Technology and over a dozen of major technology innovation platforms led by high-level talents such as research center of 3D printing and additive manufacturing, research center of robots and intelligent equipment, laser advanced intelligent manufacturing engineering center and research center of new energy materials. Dependent on the Coast Lifeline Engineering Smart Disaster Prevention and Emergency Technology Research Platform, the university led in application for the 2019 National Key R&D Program and was approved of 22.17 million yuan of special fund from the central finance.
The fund has provided strong support for construction of China Spallation Neutron Source and the four joint laboratories by the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. With Dongguan University of Technology as the major investor, the multi-physics spectrometer (Multi-Physics Spectrometer of DGUT) jointly built by China Spallation Neutron Source and the City University of Hong Kong had realized beaming in January this year and had been accepted in August, which marks a milestone for Dongguan University of Technology in its serving national major strategic demands. The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory of Neutron Scattering Science and Technology jointly built by the City University of Hong Kong and the University of Macao is one of the first batch of ten joint laboratories of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao.
The university has achieved breakthrough in its education grade. The university has been attaching great importance to improving its grade of education and strengthening nurturing of award of Master’s degree and PhD degree. In 2018, the university was approved of the qualification of awarding Master’s degree with 11 majors being granted successively, namely, computer science and technology, resource and environment, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, international business, social work, electronic information, materials and chemicals, energy power, civil and hydraulic engineering, and biomedicine; in 2021, the university was approved of the qualification of awarding PhD degree, a historical breakthrough in grade of education. According to the statistics released by Chinese university ranking, the university ranks top among China’s application-oriented universities for three consecutive years, creating an unconventional “DGUT pattern” for development of local higher institutions.
The university has made preliminary achievements in integrated development of disciplines and professionals. The university has been dynamically adjusting discipline and professional structure to advance integrated development of disciplines and professionals, turning results of discipline building into development resources for professionals. The university owns 8 provincial key disciplines covering 29 majors; 16 school-level key disciplines were selected, covering 46 majors and 11 Master’s degree conferring units. The university has been successively approved of 10 national first-class undergraduate professionals construction sites and 6 provincial first-class undergraduate professionals constriction sites. The discipline construction also serves to support development of teaching, optimizing course system. The university now possesses two national first-class courses, “Applied Mechanics” and “The Principle of Microcomputer and Single-Chip Microcomputer Technology” and 8 provincial first-class courses such as “Fundamentals of Computers”.
