In 2021, the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) started its journey for a second decade towards a world-class university. SUSTech endeavors to cultivate talents to meet the future with “patriotism, global vision, comprehensive literacy, and innovative ability”. The University will launch the Excellent Talent Training Program in 2022.

Graduate enrollment number surpass undergraduate students

In 2021, SUSTech welcomed 1,160 undergraduate students and 1,761 postgraduate students, with a steady increase in the enrollment number of top talents. For the postgraduate admissions, 1,180 were graduate students, 565 doctoral students, and 16 international students. This is the largest number of new students in a year and the first time that the number of graduate students has surpassed undergraduate students.

The University’s undergraduate enrollment came from 23 provinces, with the number of online applications for admission to SUSTech reaching a record high of 44,507. The total number of candidates participating in the ability test reached a record 16,000, increasing 10% from the previous year.

The rankings of the provinces with the lowest scores on the college entrance examination for candidates admitted from 23 provinces and regions have all improved. At the same time, the average score of the candidates admitted from the college entrance examination has also increased. This highlights the University’s ever-growing status in attracting top talents to study and grow at SUSTech.

Student success: Students’ achievement through passion, dedication, and commitment beyond the classroom

In 2021, SUSTech students participated in various domestic and international academic competitions and achieved unprecedented success in the process.

Early in the year, a SUSTech team finished in third place in the 2nd Shenzhen Marine Knowledge Competition. In April, a team from the Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering (MEE) won the first prize in the locomotion competition category in the IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics. Later that month, Yanyi LI and Haochen LEI, both students of the Department of Mathematics SUSTech, won the second prize for mathematics majors in the finals. This is the best result achieved by SUSTech students in the competition’s history.

In May’s ASC20-21 Student Supercomputer Challenge finals, SUSTech was the only team from Shenzhen to make it to the finals. It achieved its best result in the competition history, ranking fifth overall. In July, eleven projects from SUSTech won prizes at the 16th Challenge Cup Science and Technology Competition in Guangdong Province, seven of them awarded to undergraduate students and four to master’s students.

SUSTech students from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) excelled in the ACM SIGMOD 2021 Programming Contest and the 45th International Collegiate Program Contests (ICPC East Asia Continent Final). In the ACM SIGMOD 2021 Programming Contest, they won the first prize. In the 45th ICPC East Asia Continent Final, three teams walked away with gold, silver, and bronze medals, respectively.

In August, three SUSTech graduate students from the Department of MEE were awarded the second prize at the 16th China Postgraduate Electronic Design Competition. At the 2021 International Competition of Autonomous Running Intelligent Robots (RUNNING ROBOT), five participating teams from the School of Microelectronics (SME) won a total of seven awards, including the international first prize, the international second prize, the excellence prize, and the best demonstration award.

In November, the SUSTech Supercomputing Team, composed of six undergraduates, won the Highest Linpack Benchmark award and placed third in the overall competition. They also won the AI Special Prize and were the overall champion in the 4th APAC HPC-AI competition.

Additionally, Xiaohao WU, a Ph.D. student in the School of Medicine, won the 2021 ASBMR Felix Bronner Young Investigator Award at the conference, while Fuhao CHEN, a postdoctoral fellow from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE), placed second in the Falling Walls Lab Beijing 2021.