“Innovate for the Future: Discipline Development of Economics and Management in the New Era”
On May 22, 2021, SEM held the Business School Dean Forum for the celebration of SEM’s 40th Anniversary in Lecture Hall 405 in SEM Building. Business school deans from over 30 universities, including Xi’an Jiaotong University, Harbin Institute of Technology, Tianjin University, Beijing Normal University, Beijing Institute of Technology and University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, gathered to share ideas, learn from other and develop altogether. With the theme of “Innovate for the Future: Discipline Development of Economics and Management in the New Era”, the forum aims to discuss with the deans on the opportunities and challenges of economic management discipline construction and development from aspects such as discipline distribution, discipline transformation, quality improvement of teachers and talent training innovation, in line with the development trends and features of digital economy in the new era.
Professor Yan Xiangbin, Dean of School of Economics and Management, delivered a speech for the forum. On behalf of the school, Yan expressed welcome and thanks to the presidents, guests, alumni, teachers and classmates who supported and participated in this forum. Later on, based on “digitalization” in the new era and the requirements for compound talents cultivation for socio-economic development, Yan pointed out that business schools have great potential in accelerating economic digitalization and industrial chain innovation in China. By the end, Yan said that he hopes to take this opportunity to learn valuable experiences from other universities in building and developing economics and management disciplines in the new era, so as to enrich the economics and management education of USTB, improve the discipline education system, enhance the quality of running schools, and move toward a higher level.
Professor Yan Xiangbin, Dean of School of Economics and Management of USTB
The forum had three keynote speeches sessions and a round-table discussion. The first speech was presided by Professor Li Jianping, Executive Vice President of School of Economics and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Professor Li Jianping, Executive Vice President of School of Economics and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
Professor Ye Qiang, Dean of School of Economics and Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, said that “Carbon Neutrality” and “Carbon Peak” are both opportunities and challenges for China’s economic development. Innovation-driven high-quality development is the only way for China to catch the opportunities. Ye proposed four “New” models, namely, new products and industries featuring low carbonization and digitalization, new business models characterized by digital economy, blockchain and financial technology, new decision-making models featured by big data and AI and new thinking mindset with new development concepts.
Professor Ye Qiang, Dean of School of Economics and Management, Harbin Institute of Technology
Professor Feng Gengzhong, Dean of the School of Management of Xi’an Jiaotong University, mentioned that the Fourth Industrial Revolution with intelligence and informatization as its core has put forward new requests for higher education. Following the national rejuvenation strategy within the wider context of once-in-a-century changes taking place in the world, management education should serve society and lead the social development. Then, he pointed out the direction of personnel training and scientific research from aspects of international brand building and education system reform in the post-pandemic era.
Professor Feng Gengzhong, Dean of Xi’an Jiaotong University School of Management
Professor Huo Baofeng, Director of the Department of Management and Economics of Tianjin University, reviewed the friendship between USTB and Tianjin University, which traces the same origin. Later on, he proposed that business schools should undertake new missions, explore new paradigms, make new practices, look into the future, strengthen moral education, and be the integrator of the new era.
Professor Huo Baofeng, Director of Department of Management and Economics, Tianjin University
Xie Kehai, an alumnus who pursued his undergraduate study in 1982 and postgraduate study in 1988, now an adjunct professor of the school, president and CEO of Peking University Founder Group Co., Ltd., also shared his insights in this forum. He first shared his thoughts on the connotation and focus of business education in colleges and universities. Then, he made some suggestions according to his years of experience in the industry, including being a product-oriented entrepreneur, valuing the organizational power and improving operational efficiency to ensure product quality and service.
Xie Kehai, President and CEO of Peking University Founder Group Co., Ltd.
The second keynote session was presided by Professor Ada Che, Dean of School of Management, Northwestern Polytechnical University (NWPU).
Professor Ada Che, Dean of School of Management, NWPU
Professor Qi Yudong, Dean of the School of Economics and Business Administration, Beijing Normal University (BNU), said that economics and management, as the “main battlefield” of the construction of new liberal arts, is facing great opportunities and challenges. He analyzed the operating characteristics and development trend of digital economy, and then introduced the three key breakthroughs and “Six Excellence and One Top” plan 2.0 of the new liberal arts construction. Finally, following the practice of BNU, he analyzed the training of top-notch economics and management talents against the background of new liberal arts development from two aspects: the optimization of disciplines and majors and the training of “Three Good” teachers in the era of digital economy.
Professor Qi Yudong, Dean of School of Economics and Business Administration, Beijing Normal University Professor
Chen Deqiu, Dean of International Business School of University of International Business and Economics, pointed out key points of new liberal arts development from three aspects: discourse-oriented, integration and research paradigm. Later on, Chen proposed to reconstruct a five-dimensional talent cultivation system with interdisciplinary integration of new liberal arts. Finally, he introduced the talent training system based on output-oriented and student-centered continuous education quality improvement, as well as the experience of building business school talent system in three stages: freshman guidance, professional development and individualized orientation.
Professor Chen Deqiu, Dean of International Business School, University of International Business and Economics
Professor Han Xiaomei, Dean of School of Economics and Management, Nanjing University of Science and Technology (NUST), while referring to the characteristics of military industry, put forward her thoughts on establishing school of economics and management with distinctive characters. In terms of the school development, she came up with three distinctive measures of development led by party-building, culture and reform. In terms of the training system, she introduced the “Digital Intelligence Training System of Excellent Economic Management Talents” built by the School of Economics and Management of NUST. In terms of interdisciplinary, she proposed the principle of improving fine liberal arts as well as interdisciplinary relying on the engineering background, and combining with the advantaged engineering courses and distinctive science disciplines.
Professor Han Xiaomei, Dean of School of Economics and Management, NUST
The third keynote speech session was presided by Professor Tang Fangcheng, Dean of School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Chemical Technology.
Professor Tang Fangcheng, Dean of School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Chemical Technology
Professor Wang Zhaohua, Dean of the School of Management and Economics of Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT), focused on the influence of the post-pandemic era on education development, and said that universities should make the best use of the circumstances, introduce the spirit of fighting against epidemic into education force, bridge the educational gap with online education, promote the reform of traditional classroom-teaching mode, and create a diversified education system. At the same time, he also introduced the development course of the School of Economics and Management of BIT, and pointed out several talent-training measures that will be taken by school in the future, such as mutual recognition of international certification, large-scale enrollment and training, further reform of the training system of management and engineering course, better transformation of theory to practice, and establishment of an international academic exchange platform.
Professor Wang Zhaohua, Dean of School of Management and Economics, BIT
Professor Pan Yu, Dean of the School of International Business Administration of Shanghai International Studies University, introduced the training mechanism of accelerated bachelors-masters-doctoral degree system to produce global governance talents. Through the reform of undergraduate training plan, the training principle of “profound foundation, wide caliber, increased capability and high quality” can be realized. In the master’s and doctoral programme, the school established key laboratories to serve the country’s major strategic needs, and explored the training mode of top-notch innovative talents in basic disciplines. Finally, Pan put forward the direction of discipline construction and development including teacher training, thesis guidance, student evaluation system, Chinese-foreign cooperative education and international certification.
Professor Pan Yu, Dean of School of International Business Administration, Shanghai International Studies University
In terms of joint cultivation of high-level talented person among universities and institutes, Professor Yin Hang, Dean of the School of Economics and Management of Harbin Engineering University, shared some innovative training measures taken by their school in joint training operation mechanism and joint interdisciplinary development, and introduced the practices in the school’s talent-training mode reform and industry-university-institute cooperation. Lastly, in order to achieve mutual benefit, Yin put forward a joint talent training programme that can strengthen cooperation between the two schools by establishing mechanism for ensuing exchanges, building joint training base and building platform for industry-university-research cooperation.
Professor Yin Hang, Dean of School of Economics and Management, Harbin Engineering University
The last session of the Dean’ s Forum was a round-table discussion with the theme of “Opportunities and Challenges of Business School in the Digital Era”, which was presided by Gu Wei, Vice Dean of SEM, and attended by Wang Huan, Dean of School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Posts (BUPT) and Telecommunications, Cao Jie, Dean of School of Information Engineering, Nanjing University of Finance and Economics (NUFE), Mao Xinshu, Dean of Business School of Beijing Technology and Business University (BTBU) and Qu Li, Dean of School of Economics and Management, Beijing Information Science and Technology University. The four deans respectively introduced challenges in the new era based on the characteristics of their school, and said that although the challenges are different, the coping strategies have something in common. They introduced the discipline building of business schools from the aspects of building new specialties and improving the existing specialties.
Gu Wei, Vice Dean of SEM
Wang Huan, Dean of School of Economics and Management, BUPT (top left), Cao Jie, Dean of School of Information Engineering, NUFE (top right)
Mao Xinshu, Dean of Business School of BTBU (lower left), Qu Li, Dean of School of Economics and Management of Beijing Information Science and Technology University (lower right)
Time has witnessed the rise of China’s science and technology and the emergence of large numbers of Chinese talents. In the new era of global economy and social changes driven by digital transformation, business schools will surely shoulder the responsibility of cultivating talents and providing innovative ideas to stimulate the digital development in China. The 2021 Dean of the Business School Forum was successfully held!