[Editor’s Note] Building a high-level comprehensive normal university requires both overall planning and key focus. At this critical stage of climbing uphill, improving quality and increasing efficiency, we need to make targeted efforts on key tasks that drive the overall situation and influence the long-term future. In the new semester, the whole university focuses on six key tasks: further promoting discipline revitalization, deepening education and teaching reform, accelerating campus planning and construction, building an open education pattern, improving the quality of affiliated schools, and expanding school-running resources through multiple channels. We strive to drive overall improvement through key breakthroughs.

Starting from today, the university website launches the column “Focusing on Key Areas: Observations on the Implementation of Key Tasks”, highlighting the practical measures, progress and phased achievements of the university and schools in advancing the six key tasks. It showcases the spirit of the whole university in anchoring goals and working hard, gathering consensus and strength to promote the high-quality development of the university.

   The high-quality development of a university is ultimately reflected in its disciplines. The ability of a normal university to serve the building of a strong country in education and science and technology is ultimately embodied in the depth of its discipline system, the quality of talent training and the effectiveness of serving national strategies.

   At the intersection of the conclusion of the 14th Five-Year Plan and the planning of the 15th Five-Year Plan, the university firmly takes discipline revitalization as the top priority, fully implements the Discipline Revitalization Action Plan, and takes the construction of “Double First-Class” as the guide. It focuses on the development of basic disciplines, emerging disciplines and interdisciplinary disciplines, and coordinates the consolidation and upgrading of traditional advantageous disciplines and the forward-looking layout of emerging interdisciplinary disciplines. A number of disciplines have responded quickly and seized the opportunity, drawing a vivid picture of supporting the university’s high-quality development through discipline upgrading.

From Top-level Planning to Targeted Implementation: Leading the “Grand Discipline” with the “Grand Logic”

At present, the construction of a strong country in education has entered a critical stage of gathering momentum for breakthroughs. The country’s expectation for high-level universities has shifted from simple scale expansion to in-depth quality revolution and structural restructuring. This shift means that discipline construction can no longer be limited to “developing what we have”, but must answer the more fundamental question: “What the country needs, what the region urgently needs, and what the university can contribute.”

As early as March 7, 2025, the university held a report meeting on discipline construction, drawing a new blueprint for discipline revitalization. Li Guijun, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Committee and President of the university, clearly stated at the meeting: “All disciplines construction should be promoted with a positive attitude, unify thinking, build consensus, face up to gaps, identify key problems, and clarify solutions. We should enhance our sense of crisis and urgency, emancipate our minds, strengthen confidence, and take the initiative to adapt to the new situation of the rapid development of higher education. We should strengthen overall planning and coordination, accelerate comprehensive reform, and ensure that we have plans, actions, and can do things well and achieve results.”

The meeting required that all schools identify problems in discipline development and refine a five-year construction plan integrating “goals, paths and measures”. All schools should actively plan, coordinate reforms and implement comprehensive policies to promote key breakthroughs and balanced development of disciplines. The university should closely align with national economic and social needs, serve major national and regional development strategies, keep an eye on the frontiers of international academic development, and promote discipline repositioning, resource reintegration and mechanism innovation with a strong sense of urgency.

Over the past year, the university has placed the discipline revitalization action in the context of serving national strategies and regional development, continuously optimized resource allocation, and accelerated the construction of a high-level discipline system that supports the development of new quality productive forces.

This planning is not an abstract slogan, but a set of refined and continuously promoted working mechanisms.

The university has determined the planning layout of hierarchical and classified discipline construction, formulated the Three-Year Action Plan for the Adjustment and Optimization of Disciplines and Specialties, integrated university-wide educational discipline resources to establish the Faculty of Education, organized all schools to set performance goals for discipline construction, and completed the collection of higher education quality monitoring data.

Behind a series of comprehensive measures is a profound change in the university’s discipline governance philosophy: shifting from "equal allocation of resources" to "targeted investment", from “static management” to “dynamic adjustment”, and from “emphasis on application” to “emphasis on construction, performance and output”.

“The focus of the next step will be to promote the optimization and implementation of discipline planning,” said Hu Jingmin, Director of the Development Planning Office. Based on the previously clarified discipline foundation and industrial needs, the university will allocate annual discipline construction funds more accurately to key construction disciplines, disciplines applying for doctoral programs, cultivation of emerging interdisciplinary disciplines, and key fields supporting industrial development. Meanwhile, it will further improve the discipline performance assessment and dynamic adjustment mechanism, and rigidly apply assessment results to subsequent resource allocation and policy support.

A blueprint is unfolding steadily, and a set of mechanisms is taking shape. The guidance of top-level design has clarified the construction path for grassroots schools and specific disciplines, and injected strong impetus into their development.

Anchoring First-class Goals: Traditional Advantageous Disciplines Achieve New Leaps in “Hard Support”

In the university’s discipline layout, disciplines such as Marxist Theory, Mathematics, and Biology (Ecology) are striving for “first-class” through different paths.

Marxist Theory: Forging Disciplinary Characteristics in Moral Education and Local Service

The construction of Marxist Theory discipline is related to both academic development and talent cultivation orientation. The school is striving to transform this disciplinary advantage into the guiding force for fostering virtue and shaping people, the consulting force for offering suggestions, and the radiating force for serving local areas.

Lu Xiaofeng, Vice Dean (in charge of administrative work) of the School of Marxism, introduced that centering on discipline revitalization, the school has coordinated key tasks including faculty team construction, innovation in ideological and political course reform, improvement of scientific research capacity, optimization of talent training system and local service, gradually embarking on a high-quality development path with distinctive characteristics and coordinated promotion.

In terms of faculty team construction, the school adheres to the principle of “equal emphasis on introduction and cultivation”. On the one hand, it actively introduces high-level talents and nationally renowned experts in Marxist Theory; on the other hand, it re-employs retired second-grade professors to strengthen the mentoring of young and middle-aged teachers.

In terms of ideological and political course reform and innovation, the school strives to build a progressive talent training system for undergraduate, master and doctoral students, and creates an ideological and political course education model of “integration, coordination and co-education”. Centering on the core theme of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important practices in Hebei and important remarks on inspecting Hebei, it constructs a practical education system of “interweaving time and space”, and solidly promotes the integrated reform and innovation of ideological and political courses in primary, secondary and tertiary education.

In terms of improving scientific research capacity, the school adheres to multiple measures and targeted policies. It invites experts to provide refined “one-on-one” and “many-to-one” guidance for national fund applications and academic paper writing, sets up special projects such as the “Young Marxist Theorist Cultivation Project”, and implements academic publishing funding measures to stimulate teachers to produce high-level achievements.

In terms of optimizing the talent training system, the school pays more attention to whole-process education and refined training, builds a talent training system linking undergraduate, master and doctoral education with classified training, and sets up academic literacy improvement workshops to consolidate students’ theoretical foundation.

In terms of local service, the school adheres to basing itself in Hebei and serving local economic and social development. It aligns theoretical research with practical needs by writing consulting reports, undertaking commissioned projects, organizing teachers and students to conduct in-depth social research, theoretical lectures and fixed-point services.

“Since the university implemented the Discipline Revitalization Action Plan, the first-level discipline of Marxist Theory has achieved remarkable results in faculty team, direction layout, talent training, scientific research projects and platform construction. Next, we will continue to benchmark first-class discipline construction standards, make up for shortcomings and strengthen characteristics to promote high-quality development of the discipline,” said Professor Li Suxia, head of the first-level discipline of Marxist Theory.

For the Marxist Theory discipline, “first-class” is not only reflected in the number of achievements and platform levels, but also in whether it can answer realistic questions in the tide of the times and consolidate the foundation of faith in talent cultivation practice. The exploration of the School of Marxism is moving steadily in this direction.

Mathematics: Building a New “Mathematics +” Paradigm between Basic Research and Applied Innovation

Walking into the School of Mathematical Sciences, an international atmosphere greets you.

Full-time foreign experts, foreign postdoctoral fellows and foreign visiting professors discuss cutting-edge issues with local teachers. Academic exchanges flow like running water relying on national and provincial platforms such as the Hebei Base of the National Tianyuan Mathematics Central Center.

Yuan Liping, Dean of the School of Mathematical Sciences and head of the Mathematics discipline, introduced that centering on first-class discipline construction, the school has formed the working principle of “Five Persistences and Five Strengthenings”: persist in benchmarking first-class and strengthen active planning; persist in fostering strengths and overcoming weaknesses and strengthen key construction; persist in international orientation and strengthen exchanges and cooperation; persist in serving national missions and strengthen applied innovation; persist in deepening reform and strengthen internal governance, comprehensively improving the connotation construction of the discipline. Following this principle, the Mathematics discipline has been selected as a reserve discipline for the “Double First-Class” construction in Hebei Province during the 15th Five-Year Plan period; the “Mathematics and Data Science” team has been selected into the fourth batch of “Huang Danian-style Teacher Teams in National Universities”. Behind these “hard indicators” are the long-term accumulation and systematic construction of the discipline.

Facing the future, the school proposes to take the opportunity of being selected as a reserve discipline for the “Double First-Class” construction in Hebei Province during the 15th Five-Year Plan period to comprehensively promote the classified development and targeted efforts of advantageous scientific research teams. Basic research focuses on international academic frontiers and major scientific issues, striving to produce high-level and original scientific research achievements; applied research actively aligns with regional development needs, strengthens in-depth industry-university-research integration, promotes achievement transformation and application, and fully builds a distinctive and connotation-rich new paradigm of “Mathematics +” discipline construction.

“Mathematics is a basic discipline and an empowering discipline,” said Yuan Liping. This “empowerment” is reflected on the one hand in responding to major scientific issues with rigorous theories, and on the other hand in connecting emerging industries and regional development needs through the integration of mathematics and data science. Basic and applied, inheritance and innovation, internationalization and local service are intertwined into a clear development path here.

Biology (Ecology): Writing Papers on National Strategic Needs and Landing Achievements in Regional Development

When talking about discipline development, Yu Zhijun, Dean of the School of Life Sciences, first mentioned “talent team construction”. He said that the school gives full play to the spiritual leading role of senior scientists such as Academician Sun Daye and the demonstration effect of the “Huang Danian-style Teacher Team in National Universities”. Adhering to the principle of “equal emphasis on introduction and cultivation”, the school introduces leading talents such as winners of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars to strengthen the head-leading of the talent echelon, striving to build a high-level faculty team with a reasonable structure and innovative vitality.

The thickness of the talent team determines the height of scientific research. Centering on major national strategic needs, the school continuously strengthens characteristic research directions, forming multiple starting points closely linked to national economy and people’s livelihood. In the field of food security, it gives full play to the traditional advantages of cell signal transduction research, promotes the leap from traditional breeding to molecular design breeding, and actively creates new high-yield and high-quality wheat germplasm. In the field of biomedicine, it focuses on the molecular mechanism research of important human and animal diseases, promoting the extension of basic research to new drug creation and clinical transformation. In serving the coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and the construction of Xiong’an New Area, it carries out research on biodiversity conservation and resource utilization to serve regional sustainable development.

“By undertaking various scientific research projects at all levels such as national science and technology major projects and National Natural Science Foundation projects, the school is striving to build a development pattern that attaches equal importance to basic research and applied research and strives for national-level scientific research tasks in multiple dimensions,” said Yu Zhijun.

Tang Wenqiang, head of the national key discipline of Cell Biology and Director of the Key Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology of the Ministry of Education, described this “top-tier and grounded” scientific research organization model from a more specific perspective: on the one hand, build an innovative talent echelon relying on the academic tradition of senior scientists and the tutorial system for young teachers; on the other hand, promote the in-depth integration of cell signal transduction research teams with breeding experts, transform basic research advantages into molecular design breeding practices, and successfully create new high-yield and high-quality wheat germplasm.

The in-depth exploration of the micro world in the laboratory is ultimately connected to food security, people’s health and green development. Such first-class discipline construction has both “peaks” and “landing points”.

Focusing on Doctoral Program Construction: Activating New Impetus for Discipline Upgrading via “Systematic Operations”

“Doctoral program application is a key project of the university’s in-depth implementation of the ‘1227 Strategy’, and we must concentrate efforts on key breakthroughs,” said Li Liang, Executive Vice President of the Graduate School and Director of the Academic Degrees Office. The university is continuously promoting doctoral program application with the thinking of “systematic operations”. On the one hand, it strengthens top-level design and closed-loop implementation, improves the closed-loop management chain of “planning-execution-feedback-improvement”, and promotes all tasks to advance and achieve results step by step. On the other hand, it bases on characteristic advantages and demand orientation. Focusing on major national strategies and regional development needs, it guides degree programs to base on school-running characteristics and regional advantages, further condense discipline directions, improve discipline identification and core competitiveness, and accelerate the cultivation of doctoral program growth poles with comparative advantages and irreplaceability.

Doctoral program application is not an overnight effort; the key is to transform tackling actions into long-term strategies. Li Liang said that in the next step, the university will anchor the working tone of “improving quality and efficiency”, focus on three aspects: solidifying the “one-discipline-one-policy” improvement plan, building a “campus + off-campus” dual-cycle support system, and promoting “combination of application and construction” to form a long-term mechanism. It will benchmark requirements to make up for weaknesses, coordinate resources to solve blockages and difficulties, promote the resonance of application tackling and discipline construction, and accelerate the transformation of phased achievements into long-term impetus for the university’s high-quality development.

Top-level design is continuously improved, and joint tackling forces are constantly gathering.

With the in-depth advancement of doctoral program application, a number of units including the Faculty of Education, School of Chinese and Literature, School of Physics, School of Foreign Studies, Yan Liang Academic Think Tank Research Center, School of History and Culture, School of Music, School of Fine Arts & Design, and School of Journalism and Communication are striving for the goal of doctoral program construction with high spirit based on discipline foundation and closely following development positioning.

Faculty of Education: Newly Established Faculty Launches a “Coordinated Battle” for Doctoral Program Application

Education is the foundation of a normal university and an important support for strengthening the university’s teacher education advantages. With the integration of university-wide educational discipline resources and the official establishment of the Faculty of Education, this discipline stands at a new historical starting point – moving from dispersion to integration, from accumulation to upgrading, ushering in a strategic opportunity period for systematic reshaping and overall improvement.

Zeng Zhi’an, Member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Committee, Vice President and Dean of the Faculty of Education, introduced that since its establishment in August 2025, the Faculty of Education has systematically promoted a number of tasks centering on the application for the first-level discipline doctoral program of Education. The faculty has successively held meetings on education discipline construction, education doctoral supervisor work and special meetings on the application for the first-level discipline doctoral program of Education, established a special working group for doctoral program application, further clarified discipline development directions and key tasks, and fully promoted the application for doctoral degree authorization.

“This promotion is not only about ‘filling in forms and submitting materials’, but also includes the whole-chain construction of scientific research cultivation, academic exchanges, teaching reform and talent training,” said Zeng Zhi’an. The faculty continuously strengthens the leading role of high-level projects, holds multiple exchange meetings on National Social Science Fund applications to improve teachers’ scientific research capacity; invites well-known domestic scholars to give high-level lectures, and employs Geoffrey Hayward, former Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, as a visiting professor to broaden academic horizons and enhance international influence; actively promotes curriculum ideological and political and smart curriculum construction, with several courses rated as national first-class undergraduate courses; students have performed excellently in national and provincial competitions, and the quality of talent training has steadily improved.

Professor Liu Jingjing, Director of the Department of Education of the School of Education, mentioned a detail: the special working group for doctoral program application insists on holding regular special meetings every week, concentrated on polishing materials repeatedly during the winter vacation, discussing and revising item by item according to experts’ feedback, and teachers worked together to organize supporting materials to ensure rigor and solidity in every link.

This is a typical “coordinated battle”. The “two schools and four centers” of the Faculty of Education responded quickly and coordinated closely, and teachers devoted themselves to doctoral program application. It is this spirit of unity, cooperation and meticulousness that has elevated doctoral program application beyond the superficial goal of “obtaining a qualification”, making it a strategic fulcrum for deepening discipline connotation construction, reshaping the normal education ecology, and enhancing the university’s influence and leading role.

School of Chinese and Literature: Promoting the Overall Improvement of Chinese Discipline via International Chinese Education Doctoral Program Construction

“Doctoral program construction is not the advancement of a single project, but the systematic integration of various tasks such as discipline direction, faculty team, talent training, scientific research achievements, social service and platform conditions,” said Yuan Shixu, Dean of the School of Chinese and Literature.

Centering on the construction of International Chinese Education doctoral program, the School of Chinese and Literature does not regard it as “adding a new program”, but as an important opportunity to promote the overall improvement of Chinese discipline. Based on the first-level discipline of Chinese Language and Literature, the school systematically combs and overall plans discipline construction focusing on the development trend of International Chinese Education, national strategic needs and university school-running positioning.

In Yuan Shixu’s view, International Chinese Education is not an isolated training field; it connects language teaching, Chinese cultural communication, international communication capacity building and cultural exchanges and mutual learning. Therefore, the school always focuses on thinking about discipline construction in the context of national needs, regional development and the university’s overall layout, striving to set accurate directions and condense characteristics.

In specific promotion, the School of Chinese and Literature emphasizes two key points: first, the condensation and optimization of discipline directions, forming a discipline system with solid foundation, prominent key points and distinctive characteristics through repeated demonstration; second, strengthening faculty team construction, paying attention to the role of discipline leaders and backbone teachers, helping young teachers grow rapidly, and driving talent training and scientific research achievement cultivation through team construction.

Associate Professor Liu Liang, head of International Chinese Education, is a front-line organizer in this doctoral program application “battle”. From repeatedly studying policy documents and application requirements, benchmarking national strategic needs and degree program construction standards, learning from the experience of sister universities; to continuously improving discipline construction plans, polishing application texts repeatedly, and revising discipline direction setting, training objectives, curriculum system and training mechanism for many times – in his view, the doctoral program application process itself is a process of "clarifying the foundation, identifying advantages and condensing characteristics".

Chinese Language and Literature provides theoretical, curriculum and faculty support, while International Chinese Education transforms Chinese discipline advantages into international communication advantages, teaching advantages and talent training advantages. This doctoral program application idea of closely integrating and empowering the two majors has laid a deeper academic foundation and stronger development potential for the doctoral program construction of the School of Chinese and Literature.

School of Physics: Opening New Space for Serving National Strategies via Astronomy Doctoral Program Application

As night falls, telescopes point to deep space. The ancient dream of human beings looking up at the stars has been endowed with new connotations of the times today: Astronomy not only breeds major original scientific discoveries, but also escorts national space launches in fields such as solar activity research and space debris monitoring, becoming an indispensable “watcher” behind the space information industry.

The School of Physics has keenly grasped this trend. Dean Song Juntao introduced that centering on the application for the first-level discipline doctoral program of Astronomy, the school has built consensus and made systematic planning. By visiting well-known experts and scholars, accurately judging advantages and disadvantages, optimizing academic resource allocation, condensing characteristic research directions, and continuously consolidating the foundation of discipline development. The school has established a special working group for the application of Astronomy first-level discipline doctoral program, held astronomy discipline construction seminars, successfully hosted the 2026 Standing Council of the Chinese Astronomical Society, and won the right to host the 2026 Annual Conference of the Chinese Astronomical Society.

The landing of a series of high-standard academic activities is not only a concentrated display of discipline influence and organizational ability, but also a high recognition of the academic community for the university’s astronomy research strength, accumulating strong impetus for subsequent doctoral program application.

Professor Cui Wenyuan, leader of the Astronomy discipline and Director of the Astrophysics Research Laboratory, talked about three work measures: first, adhere to equal emphasis on introduction and cultivation, with 4 people promoted to associate professor and 6 young doctoral talents introduced in the past five years; second, hold high-level academic activities to expand influence, such as holding the naming ceremony of “Hebei Normal University Star” and joining the “Tiange Plan Alliance” initiated by Tsinghua University; third, establish a special working group for doctoral program application, systematically integrate existing discipline resources, condense discipline directions around development foundation, characteristic advantages and future directions, and revise and demonstrate application materials for many times.

The School of Physics places doctoral program application in the context of actively aligning with urgent national strategies and deeply integrating into the space information industry. When Astronomy meets the space information industry, traditional basic disciplines open up new development space. Looking up at the stars and keeping feet on the ground; exploring the universe and serving reality – this is the new meaning of discipline construction in the new era.

From “Revitalizing Disciplines” to “Revitalizing Development”: Moving towards a Higher-quality Future in Serving National Strategies

On the surface, discipline revitalization is the adjustment and optimization of discipline layout and the tackling of major projects. In essence, it is a fundamental transformation of the university’s development logic: shifting from scale expansion to quality improvement, from resource-driven to innovation-empowered, from self-circulation to service contribution. It is essentially a systematic reshaping of development mode, resource allocation mode and value creation mode.

The university’s discipline revitalization action has a clear main line: on the one hand, adhere to the guidance of national strategic needs and regional industrial development, promote the optimization and adjustment of discipline setting, targeted resource allocation and breakthroughs in key directions; on the other hand, adhere to integrating discipline construction with talent training, scientific research innovation, social service, international exchanges and internal governance, promoting the transformation from single-point breakthrough to systematic upgrading.

We have seen that Marxist Theory amplifies its value in fostering virtue and shaping people and consulting services; Mathematics expands its boundaries in “Mathematics +”; Biology (Ecology) demonstrates its responsibility in food security, life health and green development; the Faculty of Education, School of Chinese and Literature, School of Physics and other schools have achieved leapfrog development in doctoral program construction.

They together converge into the surging momentum of the university’s discipline revitalization.

Of course, discipline construction is never a sprint that can be completed overnight, but a relay race that requires long-term efforts.

The more we move towards high-quality development, the more we need the determination of “success does not have to be on me” and the perseverance of “sticking to the blueprint to the end”. As Li Guijun said, facing the future, the university will further gather development forces, consolidate the discipline foundation, strengthen the talent echelon, establish and practice a correct view of political achievements in solid discipline revitalization actions, and achieve high-quality development of the university in serving national strategies.

Rooted in the Hebei land of Yan and Zhao, this university with profound historical heritage is writing a new chapter of its own development with discipline revitalization as the pen.

It is foreseeable that with the in-depth implementation of the Discipline Revitalization Action Plan and the continuous new breakthroughs in the construction of a number of key disciplines and doctoral programs, the university will more effectively transform disciplinary advantages into educational advantages, innovation advantages and service advantages, and send a louder “Normal University Voice” in the era journey of building a strong country in education.

When a university looks further and roots deeper, discipline revitalization is no longer just a “construction project” on campus, but truly a strategic action that responds to the times, serves the country and achieves the future.

The university is firmly moving forward on this path.