Wang Shuguo Responds to 'Fuyao University Departments Becoming Self-Sufficient': Absolutely Not Requiring Departments to Pursue Profit

By Yue Huairang and Zhang Chengjie, The Paper

Recently, discussions about "Fuyao University of Science and Technology departments gradually becoming self-financing" have sparked public attention. Fuyao University President Wang Shuguo told The Paper that the university is not requiring departments to pursue profit or generate market-based revenue, but rather encouraging them to conduct research grounded in real industrial problems while building self-sustaining capabilities through research commercialization.

Wang Shuguo explained that Fuyao University's founding mission is to drive scientific research deep into real industrial problems and genuinely apply research outcomes to industrial development and social progress. Chairman Cao Dewang has repeatedly emphasized that his goal in founding the university was not simply to add another university to China, but to conduct an experiment. Years of industrial practice taught him that universities must be industry-oriented, application-serving, and future-facing. Ultimately, the university defined its positioning as "a new type of research university with a core focus on science and engineering, interdisciplinary integration as its path, and industrial application as its direction."

Based on this positioning, they hope faculty will "write their papers on the soil of the motherland," encouraging departments to conduct research grounded in real industrial problems while enhancing self-sustaining capacity through research commercialization — "and this absolutely does not mean requiring departments to pursue profit."

Wang Shuguo further explained that they aim to create an excellent innovation ecosystem leveraging real industrial research settings. "When the educational environment is right, talent naturally flourishes. Why has China's AI talent emerged so prolifically in recent years, yet mostly not from university campuses but from the industrial front lines? Not because they are smarter than university scholars, but because they exist in real AI battlefields. Universities struggle to produce such talent at scale partly because they lack authentic scenarios adapted to industrial implementation."

Therefore, new research universities bear an important mission: promoting two-way integration of enterprise and university talent. On one hand, they must bring senior industry talent onto campus to participate in education — at Fuyao University, students are paired with enterprise mentors who are chief technologists forged in real high-tech enterprise battlefields. On the other hand, university faculty must engage deeply with industry through real projects, filling practical gaps through hands-on experience. "If teachers haven't undergone real-world training, how can they teach students with practical capabilities?"

This summer, their undergraduate students will intern at high-tech enterprises, touching cutting-edge technologies at the frontier of industrial development under enterprise mentor guidance.

Wang Shuguo also noted that since its founding, the university has rooted itself in industrial reality and has already taken substantive steps: the university, in partnership with enterprises, independently developed an ultra-high-precision placement production line capable of mounting four independently controlled chips on a 0.2×0.2 millimeter area, targeting the chip post-packaging sector. This production line was completed in just ten months and has already been implemented, with formal product launches expected in the second half of this year. Its new display technology, significantly more energy-efficient and with superior color rendering compared to traditional LED, can also serve as vehicle-road-cloud networked information terminals, potentially driving an entire industrial chain, providing momentum for regional industrial development while generating substantial returns for the university.

Regarding basic research, Wang Shuguo stated that basic research is the foundation of applied breakthroughs. The emphasis on "doing real research" precisely requires more solid basic research as support. The university places great importance on foundational disciplines such as mathematics, physics, and chemistry, with dedicated colleges of arts and sciences and Marxism providing institutional safeguards for basic sciences and humanities. Moreover, the university provides sustained and stable funding and ample research space to all colleges, encouraging faculty to commit to fundamental research, to sit on the "cold bench" and tackle the "hard bones."

Wang Shuguo said that Chairman Cao Dewang has repeatedly emphasized that "education is a cause, not an industry, and capital should be kept out of education." Since its inception, Fuyao University has established its non-profit, public-interest nature, steadfastly upholding the public-good character of education and absolutely refusing to treat students as profit sources. Accordingly, the university sets undergraduate tuition at 5,460 yuan per year with accommodation at 1,200 yuan per year (two-person rooms), and solemnly pledges: no child shall lose the opportunity to study due to financial reasons.

They cherish every student's and parent's trust. Adhering to the philosophy of "everything for the students," the university fully supports students in broadening their international horizons. This summer, the university has fully funded 13 undergraduates for a half-month academic exchange program at Cambridge University. When undergraduates study at Politecnico di Milano during their fourth year, the university will implement "one student, one policy" targeted financial aid to ensure economically disadvantaged students equally enjoy opportunities for global growth.

Finally, Wang Shuguo shared that the university is well-funded through diverse and stable sources: donations from the Heren Charitable Foundation, annual special funding from the Fuzhou municipal government, social donations, and research commercialization revenue. The university is explicitly non-profit and public-interest in nature, with no shareholders — all returns are used solely for faculty development, laboratory construction, talent cultivation, and foundational discipline investment. Industrial research feeds back into education, forming a virtuous cycle of teaching, research, and production.

On June 17, 2026, the Fuyao University WeChat official account published an interview transcript with President Wang Shuguo conducted by Chen Zhiwen, editor-in-chief of China Education Online and vice president of the Innovative Talent Education Research Association, addressing public questions about this new type of research university. When asked about the self-sufficiency requirement, Wang previously answered: "If you can't even support yourself, it shows you lack real capability. If your research addresses real problems, how could you not support yourself? If your results aren't commercialized, either your research is detached from reality or you lack technical strength. Chairman Cao's requirement is actually a forcing mechanism — forcing us to dig deep into real problems."

Previously, Phoenix TV reported that during the 2025 May Day holiday, Cao Dewang said in an interview: "Our experiment is this: the government doesn't need to fund it, and in the future, the university will balance its own books. As chairman here, I'm essentially acting as finance minister — collecting what should be collected and paying what should be paid. Our technology commercialization draws on international experience — all labs sign contracts between professors and enterprises. Professors first help enterprises with feasibility studies: is this valuable? If it has value and a market, what are you missing? We help solve that problem. After solving it, the enterprise immediately takes the results to market, and the college and professors can collect revenue. Each college is independently accounted for."

When asked about the difficulty of implementing this, Wang Shuguo responded: "It's challenging, but not impossible. Others have succeeded — why can't we? We've already completed one case, so we're confident we can do it well. When you have no way forward, it seems especially hard, but when someone shows you the way, you realize it's actually achievable."

Originally published by The Paper (澎湃新闻)