From 5-6 December 2019, the 2019 OUC Teaching and Scientific Research Meeting was held in Haikou, Hainan Province.

Nearly 300 people attended the meeting, including Du Yubo, member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, vice chairman and member of the Education, Culture, Health and Welfare Committee, chairman of the China Association of Higher Education (CAHE), former deputy secretary of the Party Committee of the Ministry of Education (MOE), and deputy director of the MOE; Cui Baoshi, president of the National Institute of Education Sciences (NIES) and director of the National Office for Education Sciences Planning; Lu Huanxiong, deputy inspector of the Education Bureau of Hainan Province; and Jing Degang, Party secretary and president of the OUC.

The meeting aimed to study general secretary Xi Jinping’s important thinking on education and the spirit of the National Education Conference, comprehensively implement China Education Modernisation 2035, systematically summarise the achievements and experiences of distance higher education reform and development in China over the past 40 years, and promote the construction of an open university with Chinese characteristics through scientific research. The theme of the meeting was "unite to build a strong foundation to create a new situation in scientific research.”

Vice minister Du Yubo was invited to give a keynote speech entitled The Mission of Higher Education in the New Era. He pointed out that higher education in China is in a critical period of accelerating modernisation and building a strong power with higher education. The road to this goal is still long and winding, and the tasks ahead will be arduous. It is necessary to grasp the trends of higher education development, adhere to the fundamentals of Party leadership, continue to improve quality, highlight service-orientated demands, and further stimulate the drive for reform and opening up.

With regards to transformation and development, he emphasised that it is necessary to review everything from the perspective from China’s overall situation and deeply understand the meaning of “transformation.” Transformation is a process of scientific positioning and characteristic development that includes the transformation of school running concepts, education goals, and teaching priorities. Disciplines should not pursue so-called "comprehensive" or "all-discipline" development, but instead must be selective and strive to meet the demands of various types of targets. With regards to deepening the reform of the education and teaching model, he emphasised that in terms of education goals, we must pay more attention to "orientation"; in terms of teaching content, we must pay more attention to "updates"; in terms of teaching method, we must pay more attention to "interaction"; in terms of teaching management, we must be more flexible.

Cui Baoshi gave a report entitled A Blueprint for the Basic System and Governance System of China's Educational and Scientific Research Work in the New Era: An Interpretation of the MOE’s Opinions on Strengthening Educational and Scientific Research in the New Era. He pointed out that in the new era, education is faced with new concepts, new thinking, and new tasks. There are still shortcomings and gaps in educational research, which creates an urgent demand for educational researchers to build an education and science system with Chinese characteristics.

Jing Degang gave a keynote speech entitled Use Scientific Research to Promote the Comprehensive Implementation of Innovation-Driven Development Strategy. He pointed out that scientific research is the soul of a university. The purpose of scientific research is to promote teaching and that teaching without the support of scientific research is low-level teaching. In order to promote scientific research, the OUC will take a series of measures to enhance its scientific research and innovation capabilities, strengthen its research team and research platform construction, build distinctive research centres, and promote exchange and communication between universities in China and abroad.The OUC aims to use its academic capability to make itself strong and give its teaching and scientific research a presence in China and around the world.

The following topics were discussed at the meeting: the development history and trends of higher education modernisation, new trends in the development of global open universities, new challenges facing the construction of the open universities in China, scientific research strategies and development planning for open universities, scientific research experience exchanges, academic journals, and academic communication. Outstanding Youth Award winner and associate professor at Peking University Liu Chengfang, general manager of the Education and Research Division of Huawei Cloud China He Yuan, and other OUC branch leaders and relevant personnel from the OUC system gave reports and exchanged views on the above topics.

2019 marks the 40th anniversary of the founding of the OUC. In order to commend individuals from the OUC system who have achieved outstanding scientific research results and tap into the potential of academic freshmen, the OUC launched the "Research Contribution Award" and "Young Academic Rising Star" selection activity. Forty-six people won the "Research Contribution Award" and 42 people were named "Young Academic Rising Star.” An award ceremony was also held at the scientific research meeting. Shen Guanghui, representative of the "Research Contribution Award" winners and vice president of Fujian RTVU, and Wei Shunping, representative of the young academic rising stars and holder of a PhD of the OUC, both delivered speeches.

By OUC Department of Scientific Research