Taking reinvigorating the country through industry as its mission, HIE has been committed to engineering education for seventy years, forming an engineering feature with related majors accounting for 60 percent. In 2000, HIE was the earliest to decide to develop itself into an “application-oriented undergraduate university” among the local counterparts; in 2002, as one of the major initiators, it established the “National Cooperation Group for Applied Undergraduate Education”; in 2004, HIE became a chairman unit of the “Textbook Editing and Reviewing Committee of Applied Personnel Training Scheme for General Higher Education”; in 2007, it came as a vice chairman unit of the “Special Committee for Applied Undergraduate Universities of the National Higher Education Research Association”; in 2016, it was identified as a vice chairman unit of “National University-Enterprise Alliance of Preeminent Engineering Education of Local Universities”.  

Upholding the motto of “Making Steady Efforts, Dare to Be the First”, HIE launched pilot projects in two engineering majors to train extraordinary engineers in 2009, embarking on the road of reforming personnel training in this area. In 2010, it was identified by the Ministry of Education as one of the first batch of universities implementing the “Preeminent Engineer Education and Training Scheme”, the first and only being selected among provincial fellow candidates. Since advancement of new engineering, medical science, agriculture and liberal arts, HIE’s projects of “Research and Practice on the Collaborative Training Mode of Preeminent Engineering and Technical Personnel amid New Engineering” as well as “Innovation and Practice of the Mixed Mechanism of Industry and Teaching Featuring ‘Three-Dimensional Collaboration’ and ‘Four-Chain Integration’” have been approved by the Ministry of Education and separately incorporated into the first and second batch of reform projects of new engineering research and practice.

Driven by the scheme and these reform projects, the university has been focusing on local industrial demands, enhancing industry-oriented reputation, and accumulating the engineering personnel training experience based on “four-chain integration and six joint educational endeavors” through 13-year reform, practice, review and refinement.

Upgrade the local universities’ personnel training philosophy in engineering through four-chain integration

Located in the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan economic circle, HIE is responsible for helping implement Hunan’s strategy of “three highlights and four innovations”. The former refer to invigorating national critical advanced manufacturing, facilitating scientific and technological innovation with core competitiveness and leading national inland areas in reform and opening up. The latter mean exploring new approaches to high-quality development, making new accomplishments in updating the development pattern, assuming new responsibilities amid the rise of the midland region and advancement of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and creating a new chapter of Hunan’s upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era. HIE is also a president unit of the advanced industrial chains of electric drive and wind power equipment of the Xiangtan City. By embracing the engineer training philosophy based on four-chain integration, it closely links itself with the dominant emerging and prospective industrial chains in the new era such as local equipment manufacturing, new energy, textile, etc. Centered on industrial chain deployment, HIE has made the dynamic adjustment mechanism of majors more comprehensive and established profession clusters with “profession plus” border-breaking thought, such as new electromechanics, energy and textile, forming the profession chains. It also endeavors to train creative, multi-disciplinary and applied professionals with craftsmanship and devotion to the country through industry and create a personnel chain. While updating industry, majors and personnel, it has built up an innovation chain, empowered the major and personnel chains, supported the industrial chain and promoted high-quality development of local economy and industrial transformation and upgrading. These chains are interwoven with each other and constitute the integral engineering personnel training system.

Over the past few years, HIE has added four emerging majors in engineering including artificial intelligence and robot engineering, and upgraded 27 traditional majors. Its 22 majors have been approved as the first-class undergraduate major development sites at the national and provincial levels; application for educational certification of 7 engineering majors is being accepted and that of 3 majors has been passed. In brief, the university is taking the lead in advancing new engineering majors among China’s local universities.

Establish the engineering personnel training mode featuring “two main bodies and three alignments”

Based on the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan economic circle, HIE has extended its influence from the Yangtze River to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and even to the whole nation. It has also signed industry-university-institute agreements with over 560 large and medium-sized enterprises such as XEMC, XISC and Hunan Dongxin Group in pursuit of a collaborated personnel training mode between the university and enterprises, thus realizing “three alignments” (between HIE’s training targets and social needs, focus of majors and industrial demands, and between curriculum standards and job requirements). On top of that, the university works to improve the training effect so that trainees can catch up with high-quality industrial development. Technicians graduated from HIE constitute the largest share in businesses like XEMC, CHINT, and Wolong Electric Group.

“Three alignments” underline practicality of knowledge and students’ capability of use, who are expected to learn for use and learn while using. HIE also encourages them to learn readily and diligently in daily life and gain adequate practical ability which allows them to perform well at work. The survey of a third-party data investigation company suggests that employers’ satisfaction rate reaches up to 94 percent in terms of HIE graduates’ “working attitude” and “professional ethics”, and 92 percent regarding their command of expertise. HIE has seen winners of the National May Day Labor Medal, National Anti-Epidemic Advanced Individual and Advanced Individual of the New Hunan Contribution Award among its graduates.

Over the past three years, HIE’s students have published as many as 297 papers and obtained over 110 patents; 7,958 of them have participated in more than 200 discipline contests, winning a total of 1,178 provincial and higher-level awards; 35 of them have been approved as Excellent Innovation and Entrepreneurship Graduates of the Hunan Province. The university also boasts a high placing among China’s newly established undergraduate colleges and provincial engineering-oriented colleges in the list of “2017-2021 National Undergraduate Competition of Newly Established Universities”, which was published by the research working group on College Competition Evaluation and Management System of China Association of Higher Education. In 2021 National College Student Electronic Design Competition, HIE won five prizes at the national level, standing out from the provincial counterparts.

Establish a collaborated and reliable personnel training mechanism between the university and enterprises with six joint educational endeavors

HIE continues to optimize educational resources while teaching students, establish paradigms of disciplines, majors and curriculum arrangement, which makes enterprises’ participation more convenient, and implement the new personnel training mechanism of “six joint educational endeavors”, i.e. joint development of majors, training of teachers, creation of courses, research on projects, support for employment and use of resources.

HIE has set up more than 20 enterprise scholarships, introduced advanced devices from businesses and participated in establishment of 25 provincial university-enterprise cooperative training demonstration bases. To satisfy enterprises’ technological innovation needs, it has updated the curriculum system and teaching contents in time. Through university-enterprise collaboration, 42 courses have been developed so that businesses’ tasks turned into students’ learning stuff.

According to the integration requirement for industry, teaching, research, innovation, transformation and application, HIE has set up 24 national and provincial platforms such as XEMC Practical Education Center for College Students and 4 modern industrial schools such as the School of Geely Automobile Electromechanical Industry.

HIE works harder to improve the two types of teachers’ competency. Professional lecturers are sent to enterprises to enhance their practical abilities, and over 400 amateur instructors from businesses are recruited every year, in order to build a teaching team with a balance between part-time and full-time teachers and synchronized development of professors and mentors of innovation and entrepreneurship. It has ranked within top 30 for 3 years in a row among China’s newly established undergraduate colleges in terms of the National College Teachers' Teaching Development Index published by China Association of Higher Education, standing out of the provincial counterparts.

The personnel training system has gradually turned from closure to openness and from isolation to collaboration. The chains of industries, majors, personnel and innovation are closely related to the links of the training process, so that concerted efforts come into being and the training quality continues to be enhanced.

Nowadays the engineering personnel training mode is HIE’s golden card in external exchanges. In 2017, it hosted the National Summit Forum on the Development of New Engineering Majors of Local Universities, which was guided by the Higher Education Department of the Ministry of Education and sponsored by the National University-Enterprise Alliance of Preeminent Engineering Education of Local Universities and so on. At the forum the “Hunan Initiative”(later called “Hunan-Zhejiang Initiative”) for research and practice of new engineering development was generated. Since 2009, HIE has held more than 280 expert report meetings and received 200-odd invitations to make a theme report at seminars across the country.

       As a local university with engineering distinction, HIE has long been upholding its operational philosophy of “seeking the best, not the most, with adaptation to the social needs, focus on “new engineering” plus its “fresh requirements”, and endeavors to train multi-disciplinary, innovation and application-oriented professionals. All these allow the university to become a talent pool and innovation source in support of local economic development and industrial transformation and upgrading, and to manifest its sense of responsibility in practice of Hunan’s strategy of “three highlights and four innovations” as well as its missions. 

(Checked by Wang Jiayi, Gong Qian)