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| The University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) is the only university affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Boasting as one of the national key comprehensive universities of sciences, engineering, management science and liberal arts, the university was founded in Beijing in September, 1958 under the presidential leadership of Dr. Guo Moruo, the first president of CAS. Those most famous scientists at time in natural sciences, such as Qian Xuesen, Hua Luogeng and Bei Shizhang, held concurrent posts of Vice-Presidents or deans in USTC. Its foundation was praised as a "significant event in China's history of education and science".
In the early 1970, the university moved to Hefei City, the provincial capital of Anhui Province. In July 1999, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the Ministry of Education (ME) and the People's Government of Anhui Province signed a tripartite agreement, deciding to provide unified support to the construction of USTC, so as to build it into a high level university with world renown by the early of the 21st century. At present, the honorary president of USTC is Prof. Zhou Guangzhao, also Vice-President of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China, chairman of the Science Society of China and academician of CAS. The Party branch secretary goes to Prof. Tang Honggao, physicist and alternate member of the Central Committee of the CPC. President Zhu Qingshi is a chemist and academician of CAS. USTC has graduate schools in Hefei. In Hefei, the university founded with CAS (Hefei Branch) the USTC Graduate School (Hefei). The main campus of USTC (Hefei) has ten schools, 24 departments and the Special Class for the Gifted Young. The university confers 40 undergraduate disciplines, 59 Master's degree-granting programs and 39 doctoral degree-granting programs. It is an important cultivation base for doctoral students' education of CAS. About 2000 faculties are now teaching in USTC (Hefei), among whom are 10 academicians of CAS and the Chinese Academy of Engineering Sciences, 450 professors (over 280 doctor supervisors), 930 associate professors and 45 postdoctoral researchers. Young teachers and teachers of middle ages occupies over 80% of the total of the faculty. They are energetic and innovative. Many of them are taking leading roles in teaching or scientific research. USTC (Hefei) has an enrollment of over 17000 students, including 744 Ph. D. students, 1600 Master's students, 7264 undergraduate students, 710 professional training students and approximately 7400 students enrolled in the College of Continuing Education (6400 degree students and 1000 non-degree). The University consistently maintains the freshman enrollment with the highest average scores in the College Entrance Examination and the outstanding comprehensive quality of students in China since 1977. USTC (Hefei) covers a total area of about 1,370,000 square meters (2055 mu), with a constructed area of over 50,000 square meters. Over 1.36 million copies of various books and documents are available in the university library. Computer network in USTC can be called first-level in China. The past 40 years have witnessed the cultivation of near 50,000 high quality talent by USTC. The number of publication and citation of scientific papers, released by USTC researchers, has taken a straight leading role among China's universities. The Ministry of Science and Technology praised USTC as one of the four universities with the best national scientific research achievements. USTC also keeps ahead among the 13 famous universities in China, evaluated respectively by the two international authoritative academic periodicals---Science of USA and La Recherche (Research) of France. The National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory in USTC is the only large-scale base for scientific research constructed by the Chinese government in universities. The university also endeavors to the transformation of research achievements into practical use. Since 1978, USTC has set long-term cooperation relationships with over 50 universities and institutions in more than 20 countries and regions of the world. The University has awarded honorary and visiting professorship to many international or domestically recognized scientists, such as C. N. Yang, Lee Zhengdao, Ding Zhaozhong and Qiu Chengtong. With China's reform and opening-up as the background, USTC is aiming at a university of appropriate scale, outstanding quality, reasonable structure and distinctive characters by the year 2018, also the 60th anniversary of this vibrant young giant in Chinese academia. |