From July 17 to 18, 2021, the 16th Guangdong Collegiate Competition on Students’ Extracurricular Academic Works of Science and Technology, generally known as the Challenge Cup Competition, was successfully held at Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China. In the competition, the team representing Southern Medical University (SMU) won the Challenge Cup once again, with a total score ranking first among all the participating teams out of medical colleges and universities in Guangdong Province. In addition, the team members also won several important individual awards, including 3 grand prizes, 1 first prize, 5 second prizes, and 4 third prizes.
According to the competition rules, entries of the competition fall into three major brackets, i.e. natural science (papers), philosophy and social science (reports and/or papers), and engineering (designs and/or inventions). Since its inception, the competition has attracted about 100,000 participating students out of 142 colleges and universities, with a total of 3,636 entries. For the sake of fairness, SMU has arranged several rounds of the qualifying competitions, attracting some 3,000 students on campus and involving a total of 634 tutors since October, 2020. At the preliminary round, a jury of 35 experts made an offline grading of all the entries; the intermediary round required the entrants to report their entries and have an impromptu oral defence in face of a jury of 8 experts. After a serious grading and rating, 15 entrants with their well-designed entries stood out and were qualified for the final competition on behalf of SMU. It is worth noting that the qualifying competitions were successfully organized with concerted efforts of different departments, involving a body of faculty, staff, and student volunteers. For instance, to enhance participants’ competitiveness, five seminars were arranged by the Youth League Committee and Entrepreneurship Department of SMU, among many others organized by different schools.
At the final competition held at Shenzhen, 9 out of a total of 15 entries representing SMU finally stood out and entered the final round. The finalists excelled in performance and achieved remarkable results as mentioned above.
It is important to point out that the Challenge Cup Competition is a traditional event held every two years, and is co-sponsored by Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Youth League, Guangdong Provincial Department of Education, Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and Technology, Guangdong Provincial Science and Technology Association, and Guangdong Provincial Students’ Federation. Over the years, the competition has got a high degree of public participation and produced a remarkable demonstration effect in stimulating innovation among college students and beyond. In the past four final competitions, the teams representing SMU have won the Challenge Cup for four times in a row, including altogether 13 grand prizes, 14 first prizes, 2 second prizes, 35 third prizes.
As a footnote, at this year’s award ceremony, the Guangdong Higher Education Association released the first “Research Report on the Level of Activity in Mass Innovation and Entrepreneurship among College Students in Guangdong Province (2021)”. According to the report, SMU ranks 9th among 68 colleges and universities in Guangdong Province on the level of activity in mass innovation and entrepreneurship.
