Making a mark for education

In late 2012, the country's "two centenary goals" were officially reiterated by President Xi Jinping, in his speeches after the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

The "two centenary goals" state that by 2021, when the CPC completes 100 years of its founding, the goal of building a well-off society in an all-round way can be realized, and by 2049, when the People's Republic of China will turn 100, China will be built as a prosperous, democratic, civilized and harmonious modern socialist country.

Wang, 59, who worked as president of Harbin Institute of Technology in Heilongjiang province and director of Heilongjiang provincial department of science and technology before his current post in Xi'an, has long known that education and science should play a key role in promoting the country's development.

Wang says education should make a bigger contribution to the Chinese economy, at a time when human resources are playing a much bigger role in meeting the needs of social development.

As president of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Wang has focused the school's development with the thinking that a university should take the initiative to integrate into society, as well as to promote social development.

In one such move, which also integrates with the country's Belt and Road Initiative, the university constructed a high-tech park named China West Scientific and Technological Innovation Park on its campus in Xixian New Area, an urban development zone located between Xi'an, the capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi province, and its neighboring city Xianyang.

Wang says the innovation park is part of an effort to explore new forms for a world-class university with Chinese characteristics in the 21st century, and to demonstrate higher-education reform in China.

Another effort made by the university: building the Universities Alliance of the New Silk Road, which was initiated by Xi'an Jiaotong University and established in 2015 with 128 participating universities from 31 countries and regions.

The alliance is an open and international cooperation platform for higher education for the promotion of regional opening and development along the ancient Silk Road set up more than 2,000 years ago to link China, Central Asia and Europe for trade and cultural exchanges.

"We should learn from the advanced experience of developed countries to construct our top universities, and help those countries along the regions of the Belt and Road Initiative with higher education development," says Wang.