Opening Ceremony
On the morning of January 9, the opening ceremony of the conference was held. Ying Fang, member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Xiamen University Committee and Vice President of Xiamen University, Huabing Yang, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Higher Education Press, and Songxi Chen, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Lead of the Statistics "101 Plan", delivered speeches respectively. The opening ceremony was chaired by Professor Wei Zhong of Xiamen University.
Vice President Ying Fang extended a warm welcome to all experts, scholars, and participants. He noted that textbooks serve as the core vehicle for transmitting and innovating disciplinary knowledge systems. This conference closely aligns with the national strategy of building China into a leading country in education, he remarked. By discussing key and challenging issues in core course textbooks, exchanging teaching experiences, and exploring ideas for practice-oriented talent cultivation, the event aims to solidify the foundation for the Statistics "101 Plan" goal of "developing first-class textbooks and cultivating top-tier talents." This effort will help build an ecosystem for statistics talent training that meets the demands of the digital and intelligent age. He expressed his hope that two days of in-depth discussions and intellectual exchanges would inject strong momentum into refining core textbooks of statistics and driving the high-quality development of the discipline.
Huabing Yang, Deputy Editor-in-Chief, reported on the latest progress in the development of core textbooks for the Statistics "101 Plan". He noted that since the launch of the Statistics "101 Plan", the development of core textbooks has progressed steadily with remarkable achievements, and the compilation and review of 23 core textbooks are being accelerated. Based on the current progress, Higher Education Press aims to publish the first batch of textbooks in the first half of this year. He further elaborated on the Press's progress in supporting the "101 Plan", stating that as the primary publishing support unit for the Ministry of Education's "101 Plan" for basic disciplines and key fields, the Press will focus on promoting the textbooks, empowering teaching with AI, and publishing international editions. This will provide more comprehensive publishing support for the "101 Plan" to serve the national strategy for the development of basic disciplines.
Academician Songxi Chen began by expressing heartfelt gratitude to all participating institutions for their guidance and support in the Statistics "101 Plan". He reviewed the overall progress of the Statistics "101 Plan" project, provided a detailed overview of the development of core textbooks, and deployed the next phase of work objectives and key milestones. He emphasized that the Statistics "101 Plan" will continue to focus on building first-rate core courses, textbooks, and practical projects; accelerate the development of new forms of teaching resources; leverage AI to empower development; and promote the internationalization of textbooks. Through these multi-faceted efforts, the plan aims to effectively cultivate top-tier talents in statistics who can meet the demands of the times and possess core competencies.
