The other day, the discussion about world-class universities was in full swing.
Tsinghua University is the most high-profile, announcing that it has "fully built a world-class university". There are also netizens who ridicule, those who oppose, and those who support and approve.
In the midst of the noise, I couldn't help but think of Westlake University.
Westlake University was established in 2018, invested by Ma Huateng and others, with Shi Yigong as the first president. When Shi Yigong became the president, he put down his bold words: within 5 years, he would catch up with Tsinghua and Peking University, build a world-class university, and build China's California Institute of Technology.
This year is the fourth year of admissions at Westlake University, less than 5 years. Unexpectedly, Tsinghua announced in advance that it would be a world-class university, and Westlake University would definitely not be able to catch up with Tsinghua. Westlake University has not yet recruited undergraduates, and is expected to recruit the first batch of undergraduates in 2022, which is not yet a university, and certainly not a world-class university.
Haha, Shi Yigong was careless, the words were too big.
However, although the words are too full, Westlake University is not idle, let's see what Westlake University has done.
This year is the fourth year of admissions at Westlake University, which recruits doctoral students. 19 doctoral students were recruited in 2017, 120 in 2018, 195 in 2019 and 274 in 2020. The number of students is growing steadily.
On September 24, the Institute of Theoretical Sciences of Westlake University was established, and Academician Tian Gang, former dean of the School of Mathematics of Peking University and famous mathematician, served as the first dean.
China should be said to have no shortage of mathematical talents, from the earliest Hua Luogeng and Chen Shengshen, to Qiu Chengtong, now Zhang Yitang and so on. These are world-class scientists, but not enough, China has the best results in imo, many imo medalists from other countries have won the Fields Medal in Mathematics, and none of them in China. I don't know if it is a failure to cultivate talents.
As a private research unit, Westlake University can invite mathematicians of Tian Gang's level, and I don't know if there will be a different talent training model without administrative intervention. See.
The study by Zhou Qiang's team at Westlake University was on the cover of science, showing the detailed process of the new crown virus infecting human cells.
In addition to this major achievement, there are many more.
In June this year, Westlake Biopharmaceutical Company received a pre-a round of financing, nearly 100 million yuan. This is the first industrial transformation project of scientific and technological achievements of Westlake University.
China is now a big country for papers and patents, many technologies only stay on papers or invention patent applications, article publication, patent applications do not matter, the vast majority of patents are not used in actual production.
Whether this biomedical company really has a unique job, rather than going to the capital market to cheat money, still needs to be observed.
The 21st century is the era of biology, and the main research direction of Westlake University is biology. If these research results can really be translated into real products, Westlake University can compete with Stanford University.
But it's still too early to say this, and you still need to see it. Hopefully, Westlake University will do more practical things in this area.
Historically, it really didn't take long for a good university to be created, and it took 10 to 20 years to build. Judging from the current situation, the momentum of Westlake University's development is OK, but whether it can really become China's Caltech still needs to wait.
I think that when Academician Shi Yigong made a great determination to run a university, and said that he had overtaken Tsinghua and Peking University, he should have learned about all the drawbacks of public universities before he said it.
I hope not to forget my original intention and continue to move forward.