电机系

Introduction

The Department of Electrical Engineering at Tsinghua University was founded in 1932. After nearly 80 years of development, it has established an excellent education and research reputation in China and around the world. More than 10,000 students have graduated. Thirty-six alumni, either previous/current faculties or graduated students, are elected as Academicians of the Chinese Academy of Science or the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Many graduates have became full-time professors in China and the other countries, chief engineers or general managers of China’s power related industrial companies, and influential statesmen serving the country.

During the development of the Department of Electrical Engineering, many disciplines, i.e. electronics engineering, automation theory, computer science, and biomedical engineering, formed the new department. Currently the Department of Electrical Engineering is mainly engaged in the educational and scientific activities in the broad field related to the generation, transmission, and distribution of electrical power. Electrical power plays a pivotal role in the nation’s development and China is undergoing a rapid development period for power engineering, including both power system and electrical equipments. The special characteristics of power systems, i.e. complexity, instant balance of power, extra-high voltage, and integration of power flow and information flow, reflect the specialty and the frontiers of power engineering research and development. These two aspects make the Department of Electrical Engineering at Tsinghua University an active and vigorous education and research institute.

By the end of 2009, the Department of Electrical Engineering has 90 faculties. 39 of them are professors and 36 are associate professors. More than 83% of the faculties hold Ph.D. degrees. Among them, there is one academician of the Chinese Academy of Science and the foreign academician of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (Professor Qiang Lu), one academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (Professor Yingduo Han), one academician of the UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering (Professor Yonghua Song), four IEEE Fellows (Professor Qiang Lu, Professor Jinliang He, Professor Yonghua Song, and Professor Boming Zhang), three IET Fellows (Professor Zhicheng Guan, Professor Xinzhou Dong, and Professor Yonghua Song). One faculty is supported by the National Thousand Talents Program (Professor Yonghua Song), three faculties are supported by Cheung Kong Scholars Program (Professor Yuanzhang Sun, Professor Shengwei Mei, and Professor Jinliang He), and four faculties have been awarded the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (Professor Yuanzhang Sun, Professor Xidong Liang, Professor Jinliang He, and Professor Shengwei Mei). Professor Jinliang He has received the distinguished IEEE EMC Society Technical Achievement Award in 2010.

All undergraduate students admitted to Tsinghua University are ranked above the 99.9% score on the National College Admission Test and the enrolling score for the Discipline of Electrical Engineering ranks about sixth among more than thirty engineering and science disciplines at Tsinghua University. For Ph.D. enrollment, 40-50 students are recruited each year, more than 50% of whom are recommended students for direct admission (requiring only an interview). More than half of these come from the top 20% of undergraduate students in the Department of Electrical Engineering of Tsinghua University with the remainder come from the top 5% of other high-level universities, e.g. 985 universities or 211 universities, in China.

In this period of evaluation, 595 undergraduate students were enrolled and 583 undergraduate students were awarded their Bachelor Degrees. About two thirds of them continued their academic programs in various disciplines and universities. From 2005 to 2009, 376 Master candidates were enrolled and 415 students were awarded their Master degrees; 222 Ph.D. candidates were enrolled and 205 students were awarded their Ph.D. degrees. Recently about 60% of the graduates were employed by academic institutions or industrial companies related to power engineering.

From 2005 to 2009, one undergraduate group won the first prize of the National Challenge Cup Extracurricular Scientific Contest; two Ph.D. dissertations were elected as Outstanding Doctoral Dissertations of the Nation; four undergraduate level courses were elected as National Top-quality Courses; one faculty was awarded the title of Renowned Teachers of the Nation; all three lab centers were elected as either National or Beijing Experiment Teaching Demonstration Centers; and one project won the first prize of the National Teaching Achievement Award. In 2006, China’s Ministry of Education organized the second Academic Program Review on Electrical Engineering. The Department of Electrical Engineering at Tsinghua University was again ranked as the top Department with a perfect score of 100 [1]. In 2007, the Department of Electrical Engineering was elected as one of the Key Disciplines in Electrical Engineering in China by China’s Ministry of Education.

The annual scientific funding per faculty increased from 63k RMB in 2005 to 137k RMB in 2009 [2]. In this evaluation period, 1480 journal papers and 783 conference papers were published with the affiliation of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Tsinghua University, and 149 invention patents were licensed by China’s State Intellectual Property Office. The Department of Electrical Engineering at Tsinghua University undertook several key projects from the nation and industry, i.e. the first and the second 973 Projects started from 2000 and 2004 respectively, the only NSFC Major Project started in 2005, ultra-high voltage and smart grid engineering projects from the State Grid Corporation of China and China Southern Power Grid started each year. Several achievements played a key role in leading the development of China’s electrical engineering discipline and power engineering technology. In the evaluation period, one second prize of the State Natural Science Award and three second prizes of the State Technological Invention Award were obtained by faculties of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Tsinghua University. The State Key Laboratory of Control and Simulation of Power System and Generation Equipments was again accredited as “Excellent” by China’s Ministry of Science and Technology in 2008 .

The strategy plan for the next period of evaluation focuses on continuously cultivating potential leaders and playing a leading role in the broad aspects of the electrical engineering discipline and power engineering technology in China and across the world. The specific considerations include systematically carrying out innovative education project for undergraduate students, increasing flexibility and project-based courses in the undergraduate curriculum, augmenting the international academic exchange for both faculties and students, exploring new possible interdisciplinary research directions, and inspiring original research achievements, etc.