September 16, 2021
| By Zhang Qian | Copyedited by William, Zhang Liu
Recently, 2021, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NNSFC) announced the evaluation results of NNSFC projects for the year of 2021, and USST was awarded 75 projects, with a record high number of projects, up 23% year on year, including 31 general projects and 42 youth projects. USST also won two Excellent Young Scientists Fund(EYSF) projects, namely “Micro-nano Optical Fiber Photonic Devices” by Mr. Gu Fuxing from the School of Optical-Electrical Information and Computer Engineering and “Road Traffic Flow Modeling and Analysis” by Mr. Zhao Jing from Business School.
The leadership of the university attaches great importance to basic and frontier innovative research and the application and management of NNSFC projects, pointing out that “the application and management of NNSFC and NSSFC（the National Social Science Fund of China） are the core work of USST’s scientific research and the cornerstone of USST’s ability to strengthen basic scientific research and enhance innovation.” The leadership of the university has repeatedly called on faculty members and students to conduct cutting-edge basic and interdisciplinary innovative research in close connection with the “Four Facings”(facing the world’s sci-tech frontier, facing the main battlefield of economy, facing the major needs of the country and facing the general public’s life and health).This time, all the schools of the university responded actively to the university’s requirements of “selecting topics carefully and improving project quality”, and conducted several rounds of in-depth discussion on the applied topics and application forms, therefore greatly improving the quality of the applications. The university also vigorously implements the strategy of strengthening the university through human resources development, and 38 of the 75 projects awarded this year are won by people who joined the university after 2019. The record high number of NNSFC projects and EYSF projects fully demonstrates the positive influence of the construction of a high-level local institution of higher education, signaling a good start for the development of science and technology in the 14th Five-Year Plan of the university.
NNSFC is the main channel to support basic research in China, and the approval of NNSFC is an important symbol to measure the frontier innovation ability and scientific research management level of an institution of higher education. During the receiving period of application forms for NNSFC projects in 2021, the National Natural Foundation of China received a total of 276,715 project applications. After a preliminary examination and a review, 274,982 projects were deemed eligible, of which 740 key projects, 19,420 general projects, 21,072 Young Scientist Fund projects, 620 Excellent Young Scientist Fund projects, 314 projects of National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars and 3,337 regional science fund projects were finally awarded.
