ShanghaiRanking

📢 Big news from Peking University !

On March 24, 2026, Dr. Magdalena Skipper, Editor-in-Chief of Nature, visited PKU alongside Arnout Jacobs, President of Springer Nature Greater China. 🏛️✨

PKU President Gong Qihuang welcomed the delegation, highlighting the long-standing collaboration between PKU and Springer Nature in academic resources, open research, and publishing — and expressed hopes for even deeper partnerships ahead.

Dr. Skipper shared insights in a lecture titled “Nature & the Nature Portfolio — 21st Century Journals for 21st Century Scholarship,” offering valuable guidance on publishing high-impact research. She also praised China’s and PKU’s outstanding achievements in and talent development.

A great step forward in advancing global science cooperation! 🌍📚
🔗Source: Peking University

🎓 A new chapter in China-UK education cooperation!

On Monday, Wuhan University and Durham University officially inaugurated their Joint Institute at Wuhan University's History Museum — a landmark step in international education.

✅ Wuhan University's first non-independent legal entity China-foreign cooperative education institution
✅ Approved by China's Ministry of Education on Dec 31, 2025
✅ First intake: 2026, enrolling 350 students via the national college entrance exam
🌏 Students will study full-time at Wuhan University for four years, with over 1/3 of courses taught by Durham University faculty. Bilingual instruction (Chinese & English) ensures a truly global classroom.
"The UK is deeply committed to partnerships in higher education and innovation," said Dominic McAllister, British Consul General in Wuhan, highlighting the UK’s intent to deepen practical cooperation with China following the UK Prime Minister's visit in January.
🔗Source: China Daily, Wuhan University
https://www.shanghairanking.com/articles/detail?code=2026_03_655

Wuhan University, Durham University inaugurate joint institute

🏆 Breaking: Charles H. Bennett & Gilles Brassard are named recipients of the 2025 ACM A.M. Turing Award for pioneering quantum information science! Their foundational work transformed secure communication and computing, treating mechanics as a resource for information processing.

The “Nobel Prize of Computing” comes with a $1M prize funded by .

🔗Source: ACM - Association for Computing Machinery

Learn more: https://www.shanghairanking.com/articles/detail?code=2026_03_654

Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard Receive 2025 ACM A.M. Turing Award Breakthroughs in quantum cryptography and quantum teleportation redefined secure communication and computing.

Ant Group Chairman Eric Jing donates RMB 130M (cash & shares) to his alma mater, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, launching the "AI Future Cornerstone Fund" to advance AI research.
The fund will attract top scholars, nurture AI talent, and drive interdisciplinary AI+ studies. This follows his RMB 10M gift last July for the "AI Future Fund." Proud to see alumni giving back!
🔗Source: Shanghai Jiao Tong University

🚀 Unitree Robotics & HKU Shanghai Intelligent Computing Research Center have signed a strategic partnership and officially launched the Joint Lab for Embodied Intelligence in Shanghai!
🧠 The lab will focus on next-gen white-box neural networks, world models, and core technologies for general-purpose robots.
🔧 Unitree provides robot hardware & motion control platforms for real-world algorithm testing.
🏫 HKU's institute drives innovation in embodied AI algorithms & system architectures.
Together, they aim to accelerate breakthroughs in environment perception, real-time decision-making, and bring embodied AI from labs to real-world applications like industrial inspection and service companionship.
🔗Source: Unitree Robotics

🏆 Exciting news in the world of AI! The NAAI Artificial Intelligence Exploration Award, presented by the National Academy of Artificial Intelligence (NAAI), honors groundbreaking research that pushes the boundaries of AI’s scientific foundations and exploratory frontiers.
From machine learning theory and causal inference to reinforcement learning, swarm intelligence, and uncertainty-aware frameworks — this award celebrates visionary work that shapes the future of intelligent systems.
🌍 The 2026 Global Final Awardees represent leading researchers from top universities and institutions across , , , and . Their contributions are advancing both the theoretical and technological foundations of AI.
Congratulations to all the honorees! 👏🔬

🔗Source: NAAI
Learn more:

2026 NAAI Artificial Intelligence Exploration Award The award honors pioneering contributions across theoretical and interdisciplinary domains of AI, including machine learning theory, causal inference, reinforcement learning, intelligent systems, swarm intelligence, and uncertainty-aware decision frameworks.

Big news: George Washington University has sold its Virginia Science and Technology Campus to Amazon Data Services for $427M. 🏫
The deal—first revealed by student newspaper GW Hatchet—covers 122 acres in Loudoun County (~$3.5M/acre). Amazon plans to build a data/IT center. GW can stay on campus for up to 5 years while relocating programs.
🔗Source: Forbes, George Washington University

📢University of Auckland announces new vice-chancellor!!!
Professor Nic Smith has been appointed vice-chancellor of Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland. He will take up the role on 3 August.
Professor Smith brings a sustained record of leadership in the tertiary sector. He is currently vice-chancellor of Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington, a role he has held since 2023. He has also served as Provost at Queensland University of Technology (2020-2022), head of Biomedical Engineering at King's College London (2011-2013) and was professor of computational physiology at the University of Oxford (2008-2011).
From 2013 to 2020, he was Dean of Engineering at the University of Auckland. As Dean, alongside strengthening research performance and industry engagement, he led the Faculty’s response to the long-standing grievance relating to the Haka Party practices of the 1950s-70s. This was an important step towards acknowledging past harm and advancing reconciliation in the spirit of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
🔗Source: University of Auckland
https://www.shanghairanking.com/articles/detail?code=2026_03_652

University of Auckland Announces New Vice-chancellor

Excited to share new research led by Dr. Liuqing Wei (Hubei University), in collaboration with The University of Chicago and Peking University, published in Scientific Data.

They constructed the first Chinese regional collectivism index dataset—a high-resolution, time-series tool to quantify cultural variation across China.

Using objective census data (1982–2020), the dataset covers 31 provinces and 356 prefecture-level cities. It integrates eight indicators—e.g., divorce-to-marriage ratio, proportion of multigenerational households, patent counts—to capture collectivism via marriage stability, living arrangements, innovation, and public services.

This work fills a long-standing gap: traditional self-report measures often yield paradoxical results, and objective, large-scale, longitudinal data were lacking. The new index shows strong validity and reliability.

A valuable resource for understanding cultural change and regional differences in China, with implications for psychology, sociology, and beyond.

🔗Source: Hubei University

𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐔𝐀𝐄-𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧!

A delegation from Khalifa University’s Advanced Power and Energy Center (APEC) visited Guangzhou Baiyun Electric Equipment (BYE Group) to advance the BYE–APEC Joint Innovation Laboratory. Discussions focused on joint research for the UAE’s energy transition, faculty exchanges, and internship programs.

The lab integrates academic research with industrial deployment, positioning APEC as a tech R&D hub for BYE and enabling researchers to access specialized facilities for prototype validation and grid modernization. A major step toward sustainable energy solutions! ⚡🔬

🔗Source: Khalifa University

🏆 The 2026 John Bardeen Prize has been awarded to Dung-Hai Lee, Andrew J. Mills, and Michael R. Norman for seminal theoretical work that revolutionized our understanding of unconventional superconductors and laid the foundations for interpreting key experimental probes.
The prestigious John Bardeen Prize, which is conferred every three years, honors the two-time Nobel Prize in Physics winner John Bardeen (1908–1991), who was a professor of physics and of electrical engineering in The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The John Bardeen Prize was established in 1991 by the organizers of the International Conference on the Materials and Mechanisms of Superconductivity (M2S) and is sponsored by the Illinois Department of Physics and by the Friends of Bardeen.
🔗Source: https://physics.illinois.edu/people/honors-and-awards/bardeen-prize

🚨U.S. Higher Ed Earmarks Reach $2 Billion in 2026

According to Forbes, with most federal appropriations for the current fiscal year now signed into law, data shows that lawmakers continue to allocate earmarks to colleges and universities—including many of their alma maters.

Key takeaways from the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026:
💰 Total congressional earmarks across funded agencies: $15.7 billion (for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30)
🎓 Higher education share: ~$2 billion
🏛️ Number of projects: Roughly 800 university initiatives


🔗Source: Forbes