2013 Top News Stories
The Tsinghua News Center is pleased to announce the 2013 Top Tsinghua News Stories, based on online voting and expert ratings. The following is a list of the events as they occurred throughout the year:
 | Seventeen Tsinghua research achievements were recognized at the 2012 State Science and Technology Awards, ranking first for the total number of achievements among Chinese universities. State Technological Invention Award first prizes were awarded to both Professor Dai Qionghai and his colleagues for research on technology and apparatus for reconstruction and display of 3D video, and to Professor Nie Jianguo and his colleagues for research on new technologies and applications related to long-span steel-concrete composite structures in buildings. Two research achievements were selected for the Top Ten Scientific and Technological Progress awards at Chinese universities in 2012. |
 | In 2013, Tsinghua teachers and students published a number of high level academic papers in top international journals, including Science and Nature. |
 | The research team led by Professor Qikun Xue from Tsinghua University, in collaboration with researchers from the Institute of Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Stanford University, made a breakthrough in the field of condensed matter physics. They reported the first experimental observation of the quantum anomalous Hall effect, which represents a very important new phenomenon discovered first by Chinese physicists. These results were published on March 15th Beijing Time (March 14th US Eastern Time) in the Science magazine as a Science Express paper. This research achievement has been selected for the Top Ten Scientific and Technological Progress awards at Chinese universities in 2013. |
 | A launching ceremony for the "Schwarzman Scholars at Tsinghua University" program, jointly founded by Tsinghua University and Stephen A. Schwarzman, Chairman of U.S. investment and advisory firm Blackstone, was held in the Great Hall of the People on April 21st. The program, which inspired congratulatory letters from Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama at its official launch ceremony, has drawn enormous attention from the global community. |
 | The campus drama--" Ma Lan Bloom" is created and rehearsed by Tsinghua teachers and students. The debut of the drama was on April 26th in Tsinghua. The story is about Deng Jiaxian, a Tsinghua alumnus who is known as the "Founding Father of China's A-Bomb" . |
 | Tsinghua University joined edX, the not-for-profit online learning initiative comprised of leading global institutions, the xConsortium, as one of the first group of Asian universities to do so, on May 21st. Tsinghua developed its own MOOCs: the TsinghuaX in October 10th. |
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 | Dr. Chen Xu was appointed as Party Secretary of Tsinghua University by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Dr. Hu Heping no longer serves as Party Secretary of Tsinghua. The announcement of the new Party Secretary was made on December 30 at a meeting of senior Tsinghua administrators. Professor Cheng Jianping has been appointed Deputy President of Tsinghua University, Professor Xie Weihe, Professor Yuan Si, Professor Qiu Yong, and Professor Jiang Shengyao all continue to serve as Tsinghua Vice Presidents. Professor Xue Qikun and Professor Ji Junmin have been appointed Vice Presidents of Tsinghua University as well, according to a decision made by the Ministry of Education, as reported by the Tsinghua News Center on May 23rd. |
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 | Completed by Tsinghua as the lead research institution in collaboration with other national universities, the China Education and Research Network (CERNET) backbone upgrade and the academic resource platform project passed an acceptance check on December 31, 2013. It is the first large scale 100G IP network in China and also the largest 100G academic network in the world. |
