1.Overview of the School

The School of Finance of Shanxi University of Finance and Economics is one of the earliest financial talent training bases established after the founding of People’s Republic of China. Since it started in 1951, it has been more than 70 years. Through the unremitting efforts of several generations of financiers, it has sent nearly 20,000 qualified talents to the society, and made major contributions to the economic construction and social development of the country. The School of Finance has awarded the titles, including “May 1st Labor Medal of Shanxi province”, “Advanced Unit of Shanxi Educational System”, “Advanced Collective of Learning Organization in Science, Education, Culture, Health and Sports Sectors in Shanxi Province” and “Advanced Collective of Shanxi Educational System”. In recent five years, it has won the gold award for the Annual Comprehensive Assessment once, the silver award three times, and the bronze award once. It was also awarded “Three-dimensional Education” Advanced Organization and “Advanced Group in the Assessment of Grass-roots Party Building Work”. Additionally, it was awarded “Advanced Grass-roots Party Organizations in the Construction of Clean Governance” and “Civilized Organization” many times.

The School of Finance has the General Office, Youth League Committee, labs, Internationalization Office and Alumni Office. It has set up 5 teaching and research offices, including Financial Theory Teaching and Research Office, Banking Management Teaching and Research Office, Insurance Teaching and Research Office, Financial Engineering Teaching and Research Office, and Financial Technology Teaching and Research Office.

2. Introduction to Majors

The School of Finance now has four undergraduate majors in Finance, Insurance, Financial Engineering and Financial technology, with doctoral and academic master’s degree programs in Finance and Financial Engineering, and professional master’s degree programs in Finance and Insurance. Among them, Finance is a national first-batch higher education featured specialty construction point and national first-class major construction point and of which “The ‘3+3’ Talent Training Mode Innovation Experimental Area” is “Talent Training Mode Innovation Experimental Area of Regular Higher Education Institutions in Shanxi Province”. Financial Engineering and Insurance are construction points of national first-class majors; Financial Technology is a new major established in 2020 and enrolled in September 2021 in the context of digital economy. Finance is a key discipline in Shanxi Province, with a post-doctoral mobile station.

3. Faculty

There are 87 faculty members in the School, including 71 full-time teachers, 10 counselor teachers and 6 administrative staffs.

In the past five years, 18 teachers with doctoral degrees have been introduced and 1 Distinguished Professor flexibly have been enrolled in the School of Finance. Among the full-time teachers, there are 31 teachers over 45 years old, 20 teachers between 35 and 45 years old (including 45 years old), and 20 teachers under 35 years old (including 35 years old), with an average age of 44.1 years old. There are 15 professors and 24 associate professors, accounting for 54.93% of senior titles. The School also has 54 teachers with doctoral degrees, accounting for 76.06%. and 12 teachers with overseas background, accounting for 16.9%. There are 6 doctoral supervisors and 38 master’s supervisors.

Prof. Kong Xiangyi was awarded the “The China’s Financial Discipline Lifetime Achievement Award” in 2016. In the School of Finance, there is 1 national outstanding scientific and technical worker, 1 winner of “May 1st Labor Medal of Shanxi province”, 3 young academic leaders of high education institutions at provincial level, 3 academic and technical leaders at provincial level, 3 top-notch talents in “Sanjin Talents” Support Program of Shanxi Province, 1 teacher selected as “Contact Service Expert of CPC Shanxi Provincial Committee” and 1 teacher awarded the honorary title of “Model Teacher of Shanxi Province”.

4. Party building leadership

The Party committee of the School adheres to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, focuses on the mandate of “Moral Education”, implements the decisions and plans of the Party Committee of the college, and actively carries out Party building and ideological and political work. Combined with the disciplinary advantages and professional characteristics, it has created the “Ten-Aspect Educational Systems” with the characteristics of the School of Finance. The Model Branch of National Party Building Work—the second branch of undergraduate students, was awarded “Advanced Primary-level Party Organization in Shanxi Province” in June 2021, and was reported by Shanxi Daily, Shanxi Youth Daily and Shanxi Youth Daily, Shanxi Science and Technology News, NETEASE News, Shanxi News Network and other medias. It has received more than 90 visits and organized over 20 exchanges with other schools and colleges.

5. Talent Cultivation

The School of Finance has 2055 students, including 1492 undergraduates: 630 in Finance, 216 in Insurance, 455 in Financial Engineering and 191 in Financial Technology. There are 534 master’s degree students and 29 doctoral degree students. The total number of graduates in 2023 is 551, and the overall employment rate is 88.38%. Moreover, there are 345 students graduated from the School, of which 83 are admitted to postgraduate studies, 72 are admitted to domestic universities and 11 are admitted to foreign universities with the rate of further studies is 24.06%. 17 of them were admitted to domestic “Double First-Class Initiative” or the world’s top 100 colleges and universities.

In the past five years, the School of Finance has won 1 Scientific and Technological Progress Award, Teaching Achievement Awards of Shanxi Province including 1 Special Prize, 2 First Prizes and 1 Second Prize. Financial Engineering, Finance have achieved national fist-class undergraduate courses, and 14 courses, including Insurance, Securities Investment, etc., have won the projects of Excellent Courses of Higher Education Institution in Shanxi Province. It also developed a series of practical courses on financial history, such as “A Journey to Financial Wealth in Cultural Relics”. One virtual teaching room for practical courses in financial history was established. To promote the construction of a high-quality education system through the education informatization and digitalization, four experimental projects, such as “Robo-advisor Simulation” and “Virtual Simulation Experiment of Commercial Banks Internet Loan Business under Big Data Risk Management”, have won the projects of Virtual Simulation Experimental Teaching Programs of Higher Education Institution in Shanxi Province. Two online practical teaching platforms, “Blockchain Financial Cloud Platform” and “Comprehensive Practice Platform for Financial Data Science”, were put into use.

In recent five years, the School of Finance has set up 8 projects of “14th Five-Year Plan” planning and evaluation of Education Science in Shanxi Province, and one of which has been listed as a key project of the Ministry of Education of China “14th Five-Year Plan” for Educational Science” in 2022. At the same time, it has set up 15 teaching reform projects for postgraduates and 13 teaching reform projects for undergraduates at or above the provincial level.

6. Discipline Construction

The Party committee of the School implements the Scientific Outlook on Development, adheres to the philosophy of “All for Students”, aims to cultivate “applied compound talents” for the society and actively cooperates in depth with the other academies. It led the application for the “1331” project construction plan and service industry innovation discipline clusters plan. Applied economics was selected as the first batch of advantageous featured disciplines in Shanxi Province, and transition economics discipline cluster was selected as the second batch of service industry innovation discipline cluster plan.

7. Scientific Research

In the past five years, the faculty’s scientific research funds have reached 13.969 million yuan, with 13 projects of National Natural Science, Social Science and 129 projects in provincial and ministerial level. There are 16 projects in the 14th Five-Year Plan for local and municipal enterprises. And also 135 papers in SCI and SSCI journals, 23 academic writings were published. They won 26 awards for various scientific research achievements. The school held 7 academic conferences at or above the provincial level, such as “the 7th China Financial Management Annual Conference” and “the 12th China Financial Education Forum” and “Seminar for Backbone Teachers of Core Courses for Financial Technology Majors”. “The 11th China Annual Conference in Finance” received high attention and had over 10 feature reports from many mainstream medias, such as Xinhuanet, Xinhua Finance, China Economy Net, Sina Net, etc., among which the number of views of Xinhua Finance's report reached 317,000 times. The International Conference on Financial Regulation and Financial Stability has been successfully held for four consecutive years and several editors-in-chief of SSCI journals, foreign academic experts and domestic academic experts gave keynote speeches.

8. Social Service

In the past five years, 7 policy proposals put forward by 7 teachers were respectively adopted by the Ministry of Education, the General Office of the Central Committee of China Association for Promoting Democracy, Shanxi Provincial Party Committee, Shanxi Provincial Government, the Organization Department of the Shanxi Provincial Party Committee, the Shanxi Provincial Committee of Jiusan Society, Shanxi Provincial People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and Shanxi Energy Revolution Comprehensive Reform Pilot Leading Group, and Shanxi Provincial Committee of the Democratic Progressive Movement of China. Some teachers were selected to serve as Financial Advisory Group of Xiaodian District. A number of professors were interviewed by medias in Shanxi, giving valuable advice on the prospects for economic development in many places of Shanxi, the high-quality development of the regional economy and the investment promotion.

9. International Exchange

The School signed an articulation agreement with Deakin University of Australia on the undergraduate “3+1” dual-degree program and built “China-Czech Republic Finance Research Center” with the University of Silesia in Opava, Czech Republic. The School of Finance also signed an agreement with Central University of Finance and Economics on joint training bases for postgraduates, made comprehensive strategic cooperation agreements with the Taiyuan Central Sub-branch of People’s Bank of China, Shanxi Provincial Supervision Bureau of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and Shanxi Financial Holding Group. It cooperated with the University to sign memorandums of cooperation with Shanxi Provincial Supervision Bureau of China Securities Regulatory Commission, Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shanxi Securities Company Limited. It also established a talent training practice base and labor education practice base with Shanxi Xufuxuan Topography Art Studio. The School signed strategic cooperation agreements with Shanxi Xiaohe Industrial Finance Research Institute and Securities Association of Shanxi and participated in the unveiling ceremony of the financial legal research base of Yingze District People’s Court. The “Shanxi Modern Finance Industry-Education Integration Innovation and Entrepreneurship Alliance”, built jointly with 45 governments, enterprises and institutions such as the Taiyuan Central Sub-branch of People’s Bank of China and Shanxi Financial Investment Holdings Limited, was listed as “the First Batch of Pilot Construction in Shanxi Province” by the Provincial Development and Reform Commission. The School of Finance also signed a strategic cooperation agreement on the financial research base of the “Ten-thousand-mile Tea Road” with Shanxi Qiao Family Courtyard Tourism Corporate.

Concentrate on development, and forge ahead on new journey. In 2024, the School of Finance will follow truth-seeking and pragmatic working style, innovative courage and perseverance. We will never forget our original aspiration and founding mission, building the School of Finance of Shanxi University of Finance and Economics into a first-rate teaching and research organization with an international strong voice, responsible role in Shanxi Province and great influence in our country.