Looking back at the past year, we treated “innovation” as our guide, “digitalization” as our breakthrough point, “integration” as our support and “to become a source of original, pioneering and ground-breaking academic achievements” as our goal. We actively participated in innovation by practicing, promoting and leading it, which allowed us to overcome obstacles, make innovation, surmount challenges and produce positive results in the face of the epidemic. We are aware that talent is the most important resource, innovation is the main engine of growth, and it is our mission and responsibility to cultivate an innovation-friendly culture, encourage innovation, and foster an atmosphere that supports it. As the Year of the Rabbit draws near, we reflect on the major events in 2022 in order to usher in the new year with a “fresh” appearance, spur development, chase our dreams, and meet the future.

New Spirit

In the past year, the School of Economics and Management, Tongji University (Tongji SEM) earnestly implemented, learned and followed the spirit of the 20th CPC National Congress. Through official-led study, specialized guidance and extensive publicity, Tongji SEM built a multi-form, hierarchical and full-coverage learning and training system to deepen and substantiate the spirit of the 20th CPC National Congress. In order to protect the students’ health, Tongji SEM battled the epidemic and built a barrier. Many alumni and cooperative enterprises joined Tongji SEM in the battle and put the Tongji spirit into effect.

New Breakthroughs

In the past year, Tongji SEM made new breakthroughs in discipline development and academic influence. For the first time in recent years, Tongji SEM’s “Management” was among the top 100 in the Shanghai Ranking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects; similarly, its “Economics and Business” successfully entered the top 1% of the ESI global rankings; its “Management Science and Engineering” continued to rank first in China; and its “Business Administration” made a breakthrough to rise to the top of related disciplines. Three professors from Tongji SEM were selected in Stanford University’s Lifetime Scientific Influence Ranking list of the World’s Top 2% Scientists 2022. Moreover, Tongji SEM won four prizes of the 15th Shanghai Municipal Outstanding Achievement Award for Philosophy and Social Sciences. All of these showed that Tongji SEM broke into a sprint in innovation by its top-notch scientific research.

New Engine

In the past year, Tongji SEM worked on both talent introduction and cultivation. Tongji SEM currently has a total of 21 high-caliber talents, accounting for more than 11% of the total number of teachers, which demonstrates notable progress in talent introduction and cultivation. The academic environment and productivity of Tongji SEM’s faculty have been greatly enhanced by young backbone talents from top foreign universities. In 2022, the fresh talents that have emerged over the past few years together published 11 high-quality papers (including those received), nine of which were published in international A+ journals. Tongji SEM made a breakthrough by publishing papers in the top four international journals and saw advancements and improvements in team building, school planning and discipline development.

New Achievements

In the past year, Tongji SEM’s high-caliber talent cultivation system was recognized inside and outside China. Tongji SEM’s “Administration” was selected as a national first-class undergraduate major construction site. Tongji SEM now has eight first-class majors in four first-class disciplines (i.e. Management Science and Engineering, Business Administration, Applied Economics and Public Administration), making it the best school of its kind in China. Tongji SEM achieved successful educational outcomes, with doctoral students continuing to write excellent dissertations and students further developing their inventive and practical skills.

New Landscape

In the past year, Tongji SEM continued to advance the internationalization of the faculty and strengthen cross-national multidisciplinary collaboration with the goal of creating a hub for cultivating and gathering top talents. This was done on the foundation of maintaining the steady provision of high-quality international programs. Tongji SEM continued to expand its “circle of international friends” by adding five international advisory members and working closely with multinational enterprises and top-notch business schools. In 2022, Tongji SEM’s full-time MBA program participated in the selection of FT’s rankings for the first time and placed fifth among mainland Chinese schools and 65th globally, and its Master of Management program achieved its best-ever ranking of 21st in the world.

New Heights

Tongji SEM continued to produce top-notch, original and ground-breaking accomplishments in the past year while carrying out the times’ goal and contributing to the advancement of society with a focus on digital governance. Led by two experts from the Department of Public Administration of Tongji SEM, the Shanghai Index, created in collaboration with UN-Habitat and international experts, is being creatively tested in more than 20 international cities, China’s five major city clusters and Shanghai’s five new cities, to build a global network for knowledge sharing and cooperation in sustainable urban development. The one and only National Comprehensive Base for Intelligent Social Governance Experiment (Yangpu, Shanghai) that the government and university applied for was officially unveiled. Tongji SEM’s team used this opportunity to gather internal synergy for high-quality development and engage in cross-departmental and cross-disciplinary collaboration in order to support Shanghai’s digital transformation and building itself into a major global hub for sci-tech innovation.

New Synergy

In recent years, Tongji SEM has maintained close ties with numerous institutions and enterprises to develop the curriculum system, boosted the synergy of teachers with platforms such as the “Advanced Lectures” and invited distinguished individuals from domestic and international universities and enterprises to participate in the teaching process. In 2022, Tongji SEM successfully contracted with Jingdong Technology Group, made progress toward industry-education integration and worked with enterprises to conduct scientific research, talent cultivation and social services. They also looked into new paths for talent cultivation, achievement transformation, sci-tech innovation and educational services.

New Thoughts

Professors from Tongji SEM led in thinking about and responding to contemporary challenges, and they were invited to the expert symposium on the economic situation. They also led in offering proposals and thoughts on governmental affairs. Their report was selected as an Excellent Think Tank Report in Shanghai because they pioneered think tank practice, contributed to scientific decision-making, concentrated on the new proposition of enhancing quality and fostering excellence of vocational education in the new era, and explored new solutions for independent innovation in Pudong. Teachers of Tongji SEM actively shared their opinions on socially contentious and hot-button issues, took part in major media topics planned both domestically and abroad, examined current policies, regulations and industrial trends and gained a positive reputation in society while expanding theoretical horizons and amplifying the voice of Tongji SEM.

New Demonstration

In the past year, Tongji SEM performed extensive theoretical and practical study to gradually create a governance system with Tongji SEM characteristics. In recent years, Tongji SEM has been improving its institutional system and completely building a demonstration school of “law-based school running” with internal governance as the focus, rule of law publicity as the aid and the working procedures inquiry system as the platform. In 2022, Tongji SEM was selected as one of the first “Demonstration Schools of Tongji University for Law-based Running”. By greatly enhancing its internal capacity for governance, Tongji SEM provided a firm institutional guarantee for the construction of “double world-class project” and the high-quality development of Tongji University and itself.