The forum “Building a World-class University” was held at WHU as part of the activities to celebrate its 121st Anniversary. All the incumbent leaders, academicians, senior professors, faculty and student representatives and the main personnel in charge of the various schools, the subordinate scientific research institutes and the functional departments gathered at this forum chaired by Tang Guangming, Vice-President of Wuhan University.
In 2014, Wuhan University saw more increase in international competitiveness, as shown by the following figures--- the 335th in QS World University Rankings, up from the 400th last year, and the 301th in the first US News World University Rankings, as well as making it to the Top 400 Universities in The Times Higher Education World University Rankings for the second time. This year, Wuhan University ranked 105th in the world according to the “natural index”, marking one step closer to building itself into a world-class university.“It is not in the spirit of Wuhan University to rest on laurels,” President Li Xiaohong said, “It bears special significance to hold this forum on the eve of WHU’s anniversary, for we not only intend to demonstrate our academic achievements, but also and more importantly, contemplate upon and identify the gaps between the world-leading universities and us.”
Relatively speaking, Wuhan University still lags behind for it encounters a series of problems: a lack of cutting-edge disciplines and outstanding faculties, imbalanced student-faculty ratio, poor quality of graduate student pool, little international presence for scientific research and a short supply of important programs to support international personnel exchange, to name but a few.
However, new thoughts emerged at the forum towards solving these problems. It was suggested that Wuhan University shall increase its efforts to improve the disciplines it offers, as well as to strengthen the faculty team, cultivate innovation, select creative, top-notch talents, improve scientific research competence and expand its international presence.
At the end of the report, Prof. Li mentioned, “I believe it is true that Hubei boasts plenty of talents, but Wuhan University has cultivated more talents”. He pointed out that this forum set the direction for Wuhan University to make its 13th 5-year plan, serving as a guide for the development of the university. WHU needs to pay attention to the ranking evaluation systems, but it should handle it with a rational attitude. It should stick to the path of internationalization and actively improve its core competitiveness so as to make itself a top university in China and abroad, as soon as possible.
(Rewritten by Xueshuang Liu, edited by Sijia Hu & Diana)
