Recently, the Ministry of Education has printed and issued the Notice of the Ministry of Education on Recording and Approval of Undergraduate Programs of Colleges and Universities (JGH (2019) No. 7). Four undergraduate programs proposed by Chongqing University for approval, including artificial intelligence, robotics engineering, data science and large data technology and intelligent medical engineering, are all among the list. In particular, artificial intelligence is a newly created program. Chongqing University is one of the first 35 colleges and universities to launch the undergraduate program of artificial intelligence in China.

The four new undergraduate programs are all new engineering programs featuring interdisciplinarity and cross-border integration. They are part of the significant actions made by Chongqing University in response to the 2029 Action Plan for Undergraduate Education of Chongqing University released on the Undergraduate Education Work Meeting 2018, in an effort to systematically promote new engineering course construction.

Besides the newly added new engineering programs, Chongqing University has also been actively studying and exploring connotation and characteristics of new engineering programs, and has launched special teaching reform projects for new engineering courses, and encouraging new engineering research and practice. Efforts have been made in reconstruction of traditional engineering programs. The all-new talent nurturing schemes under the “information technology + traditional programs” mode have been adopted for the 3 traditional outstanding engineering programs including mechanical engineering and its automation, civil engineering, and electrical engineering and its automation, with class recruitment and nurturing implemented. New cross-border nurturing approaches have been created. The School of Big Data and Software Engineering, the School of Arts and Meishi Film Academy are implementing interdisciplinary joint graduation project, demonstrating the integration of technology with arts in terms of topic selection, process management and works exhibition. Seven undergraduate programs of the Faculty of Engineering, including architecture and civil engineering, are collaborating with China Southwest Architectural Design and Research Institute Group Ltd. to implement the “joint graduation project under the super-ministry system”, which involves practical training of the entire building design process.

Chongqing University will “attach equal importance to engineering programs and science programs, encourage integration of arts courses and science courses and combination of medical courses and engineering courses, and keep in line with the international frontier”, in an effort to create a first-rate program structure system that confirms to requirement of the times. Besides laying a solid foundation for construction of new engineering courses, efforts will be made to expedite construction of new arts sources and new medical courses, and improve the interdisciplinary cultivation and collaborative education mechanism, thus enhancing the latent nurturing ability of Chongqing University.