From May 21 to 23, 2025, the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) hosted its 2025 International Advisory Council (IAC) Meeting. This significant gathering, the sixth IAC meeting since the University’s inception, coincided with SUSTech’s 15th anniversary. It brought together 12 esteemed presidents and top scholars from world-class universities to Shenzhen to offer invaluable advice for SUSTech’s high-quality development.

The IAC meeting was chaired by Professor Choon Fong Shih, former President at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and founding President of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). University Council Chairperson of SUSTech Hong Jiang, President Qikun Xue, other members of leadership team, along with college deans, department heads, and academician representatives, participated in the sessions.

The opening ceremony on May 22, hosted by Vice President Li Jin, included addresses from Professor Hong Jiang and Professor Choon Fong Shih.

Professor Jiang extended a warm welcome to the esteemed IAC members, emphasizing that the period since the 2023 IAC meeting had been marked by remarkable achievements and transformative growth. She highlighted SUSTech’s commitment to exploring new frontiers in scientific research, fostering interdisciplinary collaborations, and deepening its engagement with industry and the wider community. Professor Jiang underscored the vital role of the IAC in guiding SUSTech’s strategic direction, expressing confidence that their collective wisdom would further empower the University to scale new heights in the pursuit of excellence and innovation.

Professor Shih expressed his deep honor in presiding over the 2025 IAC, noting his long-standing connection to SUSTech and having witnessed its remarkable evolution over the past decade. He emphasized that the University’s consistent vision has fostered a deepening culture of innovation, a relentless pursuit of research excellence, and an increasingly global outlook. Professor Shih highlighted Shenzhen’s unique position as “China’s Silicon Valley”, providing SUSTech with unparalleled opportunities due to its proximity to leading high-tech enterprises and integration into the broader entrepreneurial ecosystem. He encouraged open and bold discussions to help shape SUSTech’s next chapter of impact in global higher education and innovation.

President Qikun Xue delivered the Presidential Report 2025 during the plenary session, providing a systematic overview of SUSTech’s strategic transition from its exploratory and rapid-growth phases to a new stage of high-quality development.

Guided by the motto “Virtue, Truth, Advance” and implementing the “3-3-5 Strategy”, the report showcased SUSTech’s significant breakthroughs across various domains. In scientific research, the University took the lead in establishing China’s first national key laboratory on quantum functional materials and consistently ranked among the top universities in Chinese mainland for publications in top-tier scientific journals. Curriculum development has seen significant expansion, with SUSTech now boasting 14 primary and three professional doctoral programs, with key disciplines including Materials Science, Chemistry, and Engineering ranked within the top 1‰ globally. In talent cultivation, the University continues its personalized learning approach, maintaining a highly selective 1.9% undergraduate admission rate and successfully launching the inaugural cohort of the SUSTech-King’s School of Medicine.

President Xue noted how SUSTech has built a deep university-industry integration system, fostering a new paradigm for collaboration and significantly growing its spin-off companies. Its international cooperation network has also expanded across 124 countries and regions, with a high proportion of internationally co-authored papers ranked atop “Double First-Class” universities and the number of top-journal publications having remained steadily within the domestic top 10 over the past five years.

Following the presidential report, IAC members engaged in extensive discussions with SUSTech leadership and representatives from various colleges and schools, including Science, Engineering, Life Sciences, Medicine, and Business. The IAC members also met with students, faculty members, and staff representatives to gather diverse perspectives.

During the closed-door session, the IAC members conducted an in-depth analysis and discussion of SUSTech’s development status, existing challenges, and future directions, subsequently proposing corresponding countermeasures and formulating a comprehensive meeting report.

In their report, the members fully affirmed the remarkable achievements and rapid progress made by SUSTech since the last IAC meeting. They recognized that over the past 18 months, the University has demonstrated significant effectiveness in academic development and global recognition, officially entering a new phase characterized by academic maturity, international visibility, and institutional clarity.

The Council concluded that SUSTech is steadily establishing itself as a crucial participant in the global landscape of science and technology education. Looking ahead, the IAC emphasized the necessity for SUSTech to deeply integrate its academic strengths with Shenzhen’s forward-looking development and its growing role in national and global innovation ecosystems, and embed the University’s strategic adaptability and global connectivity into its institutional gene. The report stressed that SUSTech should chart its own path within the global higher education framework to thrive in a changing world and to make a lasting, positive impact on global higher education, innovation, and societal progress.

During the IAC meeting, members were offered the opportunity to visit the SUSTech Institute of Robotics and tour leading enterprises in Shenzhen, facilitating a deeper understanding of the advancements in university-industry collaboration and integration within the city.

The SUSTech IAC is composed of renowned scholars and experts in international higher education, providing strategic advice for the University’s development. Since its establishment in 2017, the IAC has continuously injected an international perspective into SUSTech, offering forward-looking opinions and effective countermeasures regarding its strategic vision and plan.

The Sixth IAC meeting welcomed five new members: President Abdullah Alsalman of King Saud University; Sir Keith Burnett, President of the Institute of Physics (IOP) and former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield; President Jin Chang of the University of Science and Technology of China; President Nancy Y. Ip of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; and Vice Chancellor Jeffrey S. Lehman of NYU Shanghai.