Through strengthening organized research, building systematic innovation capabilities, and resolving issues such as resource dispersion, high disciplinary barriers, and insufficient collaboration brought by individual efforts, major scientific and technological achievements continue to emerge.
Relying on newly established science-education collaborative platforms, Beihang University vigorously promotes 100% coverage of "research classrooms" for undergraduate students across all provincial and ministerial-level key laboratories.
In 1952, targeting China's strategic needs in the aviation sector, Beijing Institute of Aeronautics was established, later renamed Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (hereinafter referred to as "Beihang"). As a comprehensive university serving China's aerospace industry, Beihang focuses on the integrated development of education, science and technology, and talent cultivation, closely undertaking major national defense projects and taking solid steps in building world-class universities and disciplines.
In the ShanghaiRanking Global Ranking of Academic Subjects, Beihang's Aeronautical and Astronautical Science and Technology has achieved world No.1 for seven consecutive years. This represents a comprehensive manifestation of multiple factors accumulated over more than 70 years since the university's establishment: serving national strategic needs through scientific research, building a disciplinary ecosystem around aerospace fields, and cultivating elite talents with dedication to aerospace and national service.
From "Urgently Needing an Aviation University" to Becoming a Global Benchmark
Entering the first-floor hall of Beihang's History Museum, the "Serving the Nation through Aerospace" sculpture stands against a white relief background, with yellow characters and the five-star red flag complementing each other, demonstrating the university's spirit of serving the nation for more than 70 years and laying the historical foundation for aerospace disciplines to reach world-class status.
Fulfilling the Major Mission of Serving the Nation through Aerospace. In the early days of New China, with a weak industrial foundation, the aviation industry was transitioning from repair to manufacturing. After the outbreak of the Korean War, the country accelerated the development of the aviation industry, "urgently needing an aviation university." Against this backdrop, the aviation departments of universities including Tsinghua University were merged to form Beijing Institute of Aviation Industry, later named Beijing Institute of Aeronautics, marking the beginning of China's aerospace higher education.
"In the early days of the university's establishment, there were no campus buildings or classrooms. Faculty and students were scattered and borrowed space at Tsinghua, Beijing Institute of Technology, and other places. They could only attend classes in work sheds and study under street lamps," said Zhang Bofei, a guide at Beihang's History Museum.
In early 1958, Beihang had only five departments including Aircraft Department and Engine Department, yet the campus was already brewing ideas for building light passenger aircraft. "The graduation project for 1958 graduates was to build this aircraft," said retired Professor Feng Zonglü, who participated as a supervising instructor at the time. Given that China had not yet independently designed and developed passenger aircraft, faculty and students faced challenges of no experience to follow, no materials to reference, and incomplete equipment and instruments. More than 1,800 faculty and students enthusiastically signed up to participate, working day and night to find materials, calculate performance, draw curves, and create more than 2,000 technical drawings. They used slide rules to determine parameters and manually lifted the fuselage to install landing gear... Finally, they hand-crafted New China's first light passenger aircraft "Beijing-1" and successfully completed test flights on Beijing-Tianjin and Beijing-Shanghai routes.
Today, this original aircraft with a wingspan of 16.3 meters and gray fuselage bearing red characters "Beijing-1" stands in the Beijing Museum of Aeronautics and Astronautics, inscribed with the university's inherent dedication to serving the nation through aerospace.
Establishing Global Benchmarks through Organized Research. Entering the new era, Beihang continues to anchor itself to national strategic needs and economic and social development. Through strengthening organized research, building systematic innovation capabilities, and resolving issues such as resource dispersion, high disciplinary barriers, and insufficient collaboration brought by individual efforts, major scientific and technological achievements continue to emerge.
Under Beihang's organized research system, the university has constructed an institutional layout of "colleges + research institutes," promoting the establishment of research "special zones" such as the Aero Engine Research Institute and the Frontier Science and Technology Innovation Research Institute, gathering top talents and optimizing resource allocation. The university has built a batch of major platforms and large scientific facilities, including the National Key Laboratory of Air-Ground Integrated New Navigation System Technology and ultra-high sensitivity weak magnetic field and inertial measurement devices, creating a full-chain research system of "basic research - key technology - simulation platform - verification environment," achieving breakthroughs from single-point innovation to systematic innovation.
Institutional and mechanism innovations have given birth to a series of world-leading achievements. The team led by Chinese Academy of Sciences Academician Guo Lei developed a "bionic polarization compass" device with precision leading international peer laboratory technology levels; Professor Yan Xiaojun's team successfully developed a solar-powered micro drone weighing only 4.21 grams, achieving sustained flight under natural light power supply; the micro hovering flapping-wing aircraft developed by Professor Wu Jianghao became the only aircraft of its kind with continuous flight time exceeding 15 minutes in 2024... Since the "Tenth Five-Year Plan," Beihang has won 84 national major science and technology awards, and since 2020, has received 15 first-class national science and technology awards, including 9 first-class technology invention awards, ranking first among national universities.
"Thanks to the country's emphasis on the aerospace field, Beihang has had the opportunity to fully demonstrate its capabilities, producing a series of research achievements around unmanned systems, large aircraft, airborne systems, deep space exploration and other fields, giving Beihang's related disciplines solid confidence and assurance in ranking first in the world," said Jiang Chongwen, Executive Vice Dean of Beihang's Institute of Science and Technology Research.
Building an Aerospace Disciplinary Ecosystem
When domestically produced large aircraft soar through the sky and deep-sea robots dive into the Mariana Trench, Beihang faculty and students feel deeply proud. Behind this is Beihang's disciplinary ecosystem: using top aerospace disciplines as engines to drive collaborative construction across all disciplines; seizing artificial intelligence development opportunities to promote deep digital intelligence empowerment, exploring new models of AI-enabled higher education.
Disciplinary Cluster Collaboration Serving Aerospace Discipline Construction. Aerospace is a competitive arena of multidisciplinary cross-integration and fusion. From space propulsion and advanced materials to intelligent navigation and control, single disciplines cannot support its full-chain development. Beihang's solution is to construct a "disciplinary cluster" ecosystem with aerospace disciplines as core drivers, deep multidisciplinary integration, and mutual empowerment.
For example, the "Low-Altitude Technology and Engineering" major established this year is led by the School of Aeronautic Science and Engineering, jointly constructed by seven schools to provide or coordinate teachers, laboratories, venues, equipment and other teaching resources for experimental classes, and jointly establish multidisciplinary cross-collaborative innovation practice platforms with Hangzhou campus and leading low-altitude industry enterprises.
According to Wu Ruilin, Director of Beihang's Discipline Development Office, Beihang starts with the design and manufacturing of aircraft and power systems, uses mechanics as a foundation, and extends upstream and downstream to disciplines such as Materials Science and Engineering and Transportation Engineering, forming an aerospace disciplinary cluster with multidisciplinary support to jointly build a solid foundation serving the aerospace power strategy.
Leading Space Discipline Upgrading through Digital Intelligence Teaching. To respond to challenges brought by the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, Beihang issued the "Three-Year Action Plan for Digital Intelligence Empowerment," upgrading all disciplinary elements to layout a new smart education ecosystem, achieving sustainable leadership in aerospace-related disciplines.
Courses are the "skeleton" of the disciplinary system. Beihang integrates "intelligent" elements into all disciplines, building a "1+M+N" artificial intelligence course ecosystem. Among these, "1" is an artificial intelligence introduction course for all first-year students, building solid digital age basic literacy; "M" represents characteristic courses integrating artificial intelligence with majors, for example, Beihang's aerospace disciplinary cluster has derived multiple new directions such as intelligent material design, digital intelligent aero engines, and intelligent connected vehicles and applications; "N" refers to "micro-major" practical courses planned to be jointly offered with top domestic AI enterprises, strengthening practical capabilities.
With course system support, students can more effectively solve practical problems in their fields. In the hall of Beihang's Unmanned Systems Research Institute, faculty and students in the cluster intelligent perception and collaborative control direction use high-precision spatiotemporal reference systems, realistic scale models, and high-speed core networks to conduct integrated testing of key unmanned swarm projects, verifying key technologies such as unmanned system collaborative perception and autonomous search.
"We have solved problems of difficult large-scale cluster intelligent test verification and lack of research environments that existed previously through intelligent virtual-real hybrid test technology and model-driven systems engineering methods," said Dong Xiwang, Director of Beihang's Unmanned Systems Research Institute.
Some faculty members have gaps in acceptance and application capabilities for new technologies like AI. Beihang conducts digital intelligence empowerment teaching series training for full-time faculty and implements a renowned teacher training program within the university, specially establishing a "digital empowerment" track, providing funding, mentors and other preferential support, encouraging young teachers to explore AI-enabled educational classroom teaching reform practices.
Building a Cradle for Aerospace Talent Cultivation
In recent years, Beihang has closely followed the trends of the times, innovated talent cultivation models, and strengthened students' practical capabilities, allowing students to practice their dedication to aerospace and national service through hands-on experience.
Science-Education Integration Coordinating Superior Teaching Resources. Scientific research is the "source of living water" for new knowledge and new methods. How to avoid the "two separate sheets" problem between research and teaching? One of Beihang's key measures is building high-level science-education collaborative platforms, allowing students to touch disciplinary frontiers and master authentic research methods.
Around key fields such as aerospace, information technology, and life health, Beihang has built more than 10 science-education collaborative platforms including the Intelligent Micro-Nano Public Innovation Center and Space-Air-Ground Integrated Information Network in a graded and phased manner, providing shared service hardware support for talent cultivation, talent gathering, and scientific and technological innovation.
To break through traditional model limitations, Beihang systematically extends science-education integration to undergraduate education. Relying on newly established science-education collaborative platforms, Beihang vigorously promotes 100% coverage of "research classrooms" for undergraduate students across all provincial and ministerial-level key laboratories.
For example, the New Generation Fully Digital Aircraft Science-Education Collaborative Platform jointly built by the School of Aeronautic Science and Engineering, School of Energy and Power Engineering, and the Airborne Center has become a "practical stage" for undergraduate research innovation. The platform integrates multiple functional areas including collaborative design zones and flight simulator zones. Students observe flight data and external views on digital screens while operating flight simulators to conduct virtual simulation verification of aircraft schemes designed by their teams. Finally, with platform support, graduation design teams composed of 35 teachers and 69 students from 6 schools jointly developed a new generation "digital aircraft."
Qian Zheng, Director of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics' Academic Affairs Department, stated: "Under this model, the university implements the concept of integrated education, science and technology, and talent throughout, achieving full coverage of students at different academic levels, providing an effective implementation path for high-quality compound talent autonomous cultivation."
Industry-Education Integration Promoting Practical Capability Advancement. Beihang deepens industry-education integration, closely follows industry needs, exercises students' practical capabilities, and collaborates with enterprises to have enterprises actively participate in talent cultivation, building a "direct bridge" for talent delivery.
To forge outstanding engineers who can quickly dedicate themselves to China's aerospace field, Beihang takes industrial training as a key focus. Its National Outstanding Engineer College restructures educational logic with "real problems, real scenarios, real breakthroughs," breaking through barriers between teaching and employment through joint cultivation, focusing on building a "model room" for autonomous cultivation of outstanding engineers.
The college offers three types of courses for students: basic professional courses are jointly offered by the college and other departments to solidify theoretical foundations; enterprise practice courses focus on engineering practice and industry dynamics, inviting enterprise experts to explain cutting-edge technologies; university-enterprise joint courses integrate enterprise engineering practice with school theoretical knowledge, helping students quickly adapt to enterprise work requirements and reduce transition costs from campus to enterprise.
Zhang Chuanyu, a graduate student from Beihang's National Outstanding Engineer College who graduated this year, has deep experience with this: "Enterprise teaching is oriented toward solving practical engineering problems, paying more attention to details easily overlooked in campus teaching such as engineering processing and precision control. This allows us to clarify application scenarios of learned knowledge and future industry development directions, completing the identity transformation from 'student' to 'engineer' more quickly."
Additionally, targeting the pain points of traditional undergraduate internships being "short in duration, difficult to access core content, and insufficient in training," Beihang innovatively proposed the concept of "social classroom." The university fully leverages the strength of various colleges, signing agreements with nearly 400 enterprises to jointly build social classroom receiving bases, requiring students to deeply participate in various enterprise work processes with cumulative duration of no less than eight weeks.
"'Social classroom' allows students to go to enterprises and understand industrial production processes. Through personal participation, they exercise innovation capabilities and practical literacy, creating a new educational mechanism driven by both schools and enterprises," said Qian Zheng.■
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