Aim for Excellence and Unite for Progress! SMBU held the 2025 Work Conference.

To thoroughly study and implement the spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee and the spirit of national and provincial education conferences, to summarize and deploy annual work, and to accelerate the high-quality development of the university, on the afternoon of March 10, SMBU held its 2025 Work Conference. Attendees included leaders, leadership assistants, all middle-level cadres, and all faculty and staff of the university. The conference was presided over by Chen Chaofeng, deputy secretary of the Party Committee and secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission.

At the conference, first vice president & academic committee chairman Ivanchenko Sergei read out Commendation Decision for Outstanding Institutions and Special Teaching Research Award in 2024 to commend outstanding institutions and special teaching research award institutions. President and deputy Party secretary Li Hezhang presented awards to outstanding institution representatives.

Li Hezhang delivered a work report titled Aim for Excellence and Unite for Progress: Accelerate to Build a Benchmark for China-Russia Higher Education Cooperation. This report provides review and summary of our work in 2024, deep analysis of our current development situation, and comprehensive deployment of our work in 2025, indicating the direction and determining the goal for our development.

The report indicates that the year 2024 was an important year for comprehensively promoting the construction of a high-level university; under the careful guidance and strong support of the governments of China and Russia, Guangdong Province, and the university, all people in the university worked together and made significant progress in various undertakings. In May 2024, Chinese vice president Han Zheng and Russian President Vladimir Putin visited SMBU booth at VIII China-Russia Expo and listened to a special report on the development and construction of the university. On March 6, 2025, Igor Morgulov, Russian Ambassador to China, visited Shenzhen MSU-BIT University and fully affirmed and highly recognized its development, injecting strong impetus into its development in the future. The report comprehensively summarizes the work of the university in 2024 in eight aspects, including discipline layout, talent cultivation, faculty construction, scientific research, university culture construction, cooperation and exchange, governance system, and Party building. This report shows the achievements of the university in various undertakings in the past year with detailed data and specific examples.

In addition, this report provides a profound analysis of the current development situation, opportunities and challenges of the university. The report indicates that in 2025, the university enters a new stage of “connotative development”. Therefore, it should fully grasp three new window periods of technological transformation, joint education between China and Russia, and global higher education development, should perform based on one blueprint, and should consistently promote various undertakings to advance to deeper levels and broader fields with greater determination, courage and wisdom. In addition, the university should unify its thinking, confirm its confidence, overcome its difficulties, and balance the “bring in” strategy and the “go global” strategy. The university should promote the opening up of education in the “mutual efforts” between China and Russia, help the deep and solid implementation of high-quality “the Belt and Road” Initiative, and constantly create a new situation in the construction of the first China-Russia cooperation university.

The report highlights that the year 2025 is the final year of the 14th Five-Year Plan. To perform well in this year, the university should fully implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of CPC and the 2nd and 3rd Plenary Sessions of the 20th CPC Central Committee under the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. The university should adhere to the integrated planning of education, technology and talent as a whole, and promote its high-quality development with high-quality goals. In addition, the university should seek for “connotative development”, i.e. unity in scale, quality and efficiency, and should highlight scale, volume and space. Furthermore, the university should pay more attention to structural optimization and upgrading, comprehensive improvement of quality and efficient utilization of resources, should consolidate the consensus of the whole university and should strengthen collaborative efforts in tackling challenges. Aiming at the construction goals in 2030, i.e. “key educational indicators rank among the top tier of Chinese-foreign cooperative education” and “be the top university in China-Russia cooperation education”, the university should uphold the spirit of “work hard, overcome difficulties”, deepen the implementation of “seven projects”, systematically promote the construction of connotation in this university and promote the high-quality development of the university with a new atmosphere and a new approach to obtain new achievements. This report indicates a detailed deployment of 28 tasks in seven projects, i.e. discipline and major peak climbing project, high-level faculty team leap project, student training whole process optimization project, scientific research breakthrough project, China-Russia culture integration and mutual learning project, exchange and cooperation expansion project, and university governance system and governance capability modernization project. This report outlines a detailed and precise blueprint for the development of the university in this year.

Finally, Li Hezhang asked three questions “Are you SMBU people? Do you love SMBU? Do you want SMBU to improve?” by imitating three patriotic questions raised by renowned educator Mr. Zhang Boling at the opening ceremony of Nankai University. Li Hezhang called on the whole university to make common efforts, seek for a common goal, think and work together, to promote the continuous progress of various undertakings. “These three questions concern the history, the times and the future. We will ask generations of SMBU people these questions and look forward to their answers. With our practical actions and unremitting efforts, we will write a more brilliant future for SMBU!”