On the morning of Feb. 5, Xi Chen, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and Vice Minister of the Ministry of Education of China, visited Prof. Andrew Chi-Chih Yao, Turing Award winner and Director of Institute for Theoretical Computer Science, accompanied by Heping Hu, Secretary of the Party Committee, Tsinghua University and Xu Chen, Vice Executive Secretary of the Party Committee, Tsinghua University.

Minister Xi Chen enquired Prof. Yao about his past five-year work since his return to Tsinghua University, and discussed with him issues concerning high-level talents cultivation, innovative research, basic research, the construction of higher education system, etc. Xi Chen spoke highly of the current innovative talents training model of Prof. Yao’s and his institute, and said that if the current system could be put into words in a short time, the others would learn from it, and effectively cultivate first-class talents with such training model. When referring to first-class innovative talents cultivation, Vice Minister Xi Chen made special emphasis on the combination of three key elements: system design, supporting resources and cultural atmosphere. Minister Chen said that more leading scientists are expected to return to China, and will be provided with good research conditions by the Ministry of Education. We hope they would make significant breakthrough in their research areas, build their own top research team, and cultivate a group of outstanding talents, in order to promote the development of higher education in China and to accelerate the pace of constructing world-class universities in China.

Prof. Yao introduced the personal development of his former PhD students after graduation, especially those who are doing postdoctoral researches in prestigious universities abroad. When talking about China’s capacity of pooling resources to do something significant, Prof. Yao expressed his special gratitude to the Ministry of Education and Tsinghua University for their full support. He said, with those support and through the tireless efforts and experience accumulation, it is sure that some of the subjects would rank the first in the world.