In recent years, Chinese universities have been rapidly adjusting their departmental and program structures, significantly enhancing their capacity to serve national strategies and support high-quality economic and social development. Recently, multiple institutions have intensively established new colleges. On April 29, Anhui University of Technology inaugurated five new schools: the School of Intelligent Robotics, the School of Hydrogen Energy Engineering, the School of Technology Business, the School of Outstanding Engineers, and the Future Technology Institute for Deep Space Metallurgy and Extreme Materials. These new colleges are precisely aligned with Anhui Province's development goals for its "Three Bases and One Area" initiative and the layout of its modern industrial system. Building on the university's tradition of "serving the nation through steel and strengthening the country through industry" and its strengths in conventional engineering disciplines, the new schools focus on cutting-edge technologies in national strategic emerging industries such as artificial intelligence, low-altitude economy, new energy, and deep space exploration, thereby promoting the integration of the education chain and talent chain with the industrial chain and innovation chain.
On April 28, Hubei University of Education held a press conference to announce the establishment of the School of Optoelectronic Information Engineering, the School of New Energy Materials, the School of Digital Economy Industries, and the School of Digital Intelligence for Intangible Cultural Heritage. The university is simultaneously advancing the creation of distinctive academic brands under the "One College, One Brand" initiative, optimizing its disciplinary structure, and empowering new quality productive forces and regional high-quality development through academic innovation, precisely meeting national strategic needs and the requirements of Hubei's "51020" modern industrial cluster development.
On April 27, during the AI Automotive Technology and Industrial Innovation Matchmaking Event at the 4th China (Anhui) Scientific and Technological Achievements Transformation Fair, Hefei Institute of Technology signed a cooperation agreement with the Anhui Provincial Automotive Innovation Center to jointly establish the AI Automotive Engineering School and held an unveiling ceremony.
Since last year, numerous universities have successively established new colleges focusing on frontier fields such as embodied intelligence, artificial intelligence, integrated circuits, aerospace, life sciences, and future agriculture. Some regions are also encouraging and supporting universities to shift towards science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. For example, the outline of Chongqing's 15th Five-Year Plan proposes supporting eligible universities in transitioning to STEM fields, aiming for graduates in STEM and agriculture/medicine at the undergraduate level and above to reach 60% of the total.
Concurrently, many universities are accelerating their transition towards STEM disciplines. Guiyang University, guided by its "Discipline and Program Optimization Project," is implementing an action plan to strengthen STEM fields. Over the past five years (2021-2025), it has added nine emerging STEM programs, including Artificial Intelligence, Data Science and Big Data Technology, and Intelligent Manufacturing Engineering. Simultaneously, it has reduced programs with weak societal demand and established an early warning and exit mechanism, creating a dynamic optimization ecosystem characterized by "flexible setup and orderly adjustment." Furthermore, the university is focusing on building interdisciplinary clusters centered on "Digital Intelligence Technology" to promote deep integration and development of disciplines. Through these measures, the university has achieved a structural breakthrough: the total number of undergraduate programs has been optimized to 38, with the proportion of STEM programs increasing from 47.6% to 52.6%, marking a transition from a balance between arts and sciences to a STEM-dominated profile.
On November 19-20, 2025, Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences held a special meeting on the formulation of its 15th Five-Year Development Plan. The meeting emphasized focusing on two core tasks: achieving a university name change and laying the foundation for applying for doctoral programs. The university had previously proposed changing its name to Chongqing University of Technology, with the development goal of becoming an application-oriented technological university.
Multiple normal universities are collectively increasing their focus on STEM disciplines. On the morning of April 3, Anqing Normal University held a seminar on the high-quality development of application-oriented universities and unveiled nine new colleges, including the School of Mathematics and Statistics, the School of Artificial Intelligence and Computing, and the School of Intelligent Manufacturing and Robotics. On February 7 of this year, Anhui Normal University announced the establishment of three new engineering colleges: the School of Intelligent Information and Advanced Manufacturing, the School of Smart Materials and Future Energy, and the School of Artificial Intelligence. Concurrently, it established a School of Technology Business aimed at cultivating interdisciplinary talent in technology industry organization who "understand technology, industry, capital, markets, and management." Jiang Jiaping, Secretary of the Anhui Normal University Party Committee, stated that the establishment of the new engineering colleges would inject new developmental momentum into the university, promoting a deep transformation from a teacher education focus to a dual-drive model of "teacher education foundation + engineering core strength." This shift will also help resolve potential disconnects between serving national strategies, supporting local development, and maintaining the core mission of teacher education.
Ding Changfa, an associate professor in the Department of Economics at Xiamen University, analyzed that normal universities currently face multiple developmental challenges. Changes in the school-age population have led to shifts in the demand for basic education teachers, and the teacher education system has become more open; for instance, graduates from non-normal universities can also become teachers by obtaining teaching qualifications. "Now, many master's and even doctoral graduates from top-tier universities like Tsinghua and Peking University are becoming teachers in famous secondary schools in cities like Shenzhen and Hangzhou," Ding said. Under the influence of these factors, many normal universities are accelerating their transformation and adjustments.
Universities strong in arts and sciences, languages, or finance and economics are also speeding up the development of new engineering disciplines. On November 21 last year, the University of International Business and Economics unveiled the establishment of its School of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science. The school will use "Artificial Intelligence + Data Science" as a dual-core engine, deeply integrate with the university's strengths in economics, management, law, and liberal arts, and accelerate the building of an outstanding engineering school with distinct UIBE characteristics. Shanghai International Studies University is promoting interdisciplinary integration between liberal arts, between liberal arts and sciences, and between liberal arts and engineering, based on its foreign language disciplines. It has established institutes such as the Institute of Language Sciences, the Key Laboratory of Brain-Computer Collaborative Information Behavior, the Applied Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, and the SISU-iFLYTEK Interdisciplinary Joint Laboratory for Translation and Interpreting. These initiatives promote interdisciplinary research in linguistics, management, computer science, and cognitive neuroscience, advancing frontier exploration in data-driven language intelligence research.
Ding Changfa believes that universities primarily focused on liberal arts indeed face significant challenges and need to accelerate their transformation by introducing faculty in STEM fields, setting up relevant curricula, and combining their original strengths in liberal arts with STEM disciplines to cultivate interdisciplinary talent that meets the needs of economic and social development. For example, the market has a strong demand for composite talent who understand both technology and business.
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