USST Students Score Higher Grades in CICSIC

From December 3rd to 6th, the China International College Students’ Innovation Competition (2023) final, co-hosted by 12 ministries including the Ministry of Education, and organized by the Tianjin Municipal People’s Government with Tianjin University as the host, took place in Tianjin. After intense competition in the national online evaluation, panel evaluation, and the final round for gold awards, our university’s five teams advanced to the national finals, achieving one gold and four silver awards in the Higher Education Main Track and the "Youth Red Dream Journey" Track. This marks the best performance for our university in the history of the competition. Notably, the event attracted 4.21 million projects from 5,296 schools in 151 countries and regions worldwide, with 17.09 million participants. Among them, 1,260 outstanding projects appeared at the final stage, and 117 mainland universities won a total of 196 gold awards.

Our university’s gold award-winning project, the "Red Sleeve Knife - Globally Pioneering Minimally Invasive Surgical Knife for Lung Cancer Treatment" team, developed a flexible cold knife system. This innovative system enters the lung bronchus through the body’s natural cavity, employing freezing technology to generate ice crystals inside and outside the cells, effectively killing cancer cells and introducing a new dimension to tumor treatment. Technologically, the flexible cold knife system achieves three major innovations: ultra-low-temperature system, safety system, and cold energy recovery system. It offers advantages such as non-invasive treatment, safety throughout the process, painlessness, and a cost six times lower than foreign minimally invasive cryotherapy devices. It stands as one of our university’s outstanding achievements in the medicine and engineering interdisciplinary project.
The competition awards reflect the overall strength of the university in nurturing talents, showcasing the depth of talent development and the foundation of innovation and entrepreneurship education quality. Behind these achievements are the relentless efforts of the participating student teams, the meticulous guidance from the faculty, and the collective collaboration of the entire university community. More than 1,300 projects from within the university entered for the competition. After intense competition, our university won 9 gold, 16 silver, and 14 bronze awards in the Shanghai’s competition, reaching a historical high in the number of gold awards and total awards, with 8 projects advancing to the national competition.
During the preparation for the national competition, the organizing committee of the selection competition invited numerous experts, including well-known scholars in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship education, high-quality domestic investment institutions and business founders, and alumni entrepreneurs. With a combination of online and offline methods, they conducted nearly a hundred activities such as lectures, training camps, and one-on-one coaching to cultivate, polish, highlight, and discover the characteristics of the projects, continuously improving the quality of the participating projects and providing solid supports for the elevation of the teams’ capabilities. Throughout the preparation and competition, all participating students and faculty worked together, demonstrating the spirit of daring to innovate and strive for success, adding a new milestone to the university’s innovation and entrepreneurship efforts.

As of now, a total of 4,029 students have won 1,695 awards in various discipline competitions in 2023, including 100 national-level first prizes and above, 222 national-level second prizes, and 258 provincial-level first prizes, all reaching historical highs. The university attaches great importance to the innovation and entrepreneurship education, using high-level comprehensive competitions as a starting point to deepen the reform of talent development models and institutional mechanisms. It promotes the integration of industry and education, continuously improves the guidance and service system for college students’ innovation and entrepreneurship, integrates innovation and entrepreneurship education into the entire process of talent cultivation and every aspect of education and teaching, fosters a culture of innovation where various elements compete to burst forth, builds an ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship, and cultivates more innovative and entrepreneurial talents who are eager to engage in practice. The university will adhere to the principle of nurturing talent through competitions, fully leverage the driving role of competitions, intensify the integration of teaching and practical resources both inside and outside the university, focus on cultivating outstanding innovative talents,take competitions as a catalyst to effectively integrate innovation and entrepreneurship education with education and teaching, technology transfer, talent gathering, and other elements, bridge the gap between education and industry, and shape an ecological system for the coordinated development of education and technology talents. Using competitions as a medium, USST will build a collaborative platform for nurturing talents, contributing even more to industry and local economic and social development.