The 18th “Challenge Cup” National Extracurricular Academic Science and Technology Works Competition for college students was held recently. After tests and evaluations, the students of Renmin University of China (RUC) won one national first prize, two national second prizes and one national third prize. Meanwhile, RUC also won two collective awards, including the Award of excellent organization and the Capital “Winners Cup”, marking the best results since 2015.
National “Challenge Cup” Competition: challenging the future on a higher stage
The “Challenge Cup” Competition is the most influential extracurricular academic science and technology competition for college students in China. The Competition started from this June, when the contributed works were reviewed. Then in November, all the qualified academic works were evaluated in the final.
With the joint efforts of the instructors and students, three teams from RUC won the first, second and third prizes respectively in the main race track.
The team of Zhao Yilin, Wangqian, Lang Jiaqi and Gao ziwen won the national first prize. They sorted out the process how Bing Dwen Dwen went viral on overseas short video platforms. Based on this exploration, the team further tried to find an effective way to spread Chinese cultural IPs overseas when the network are now filled with people of “Z generation”.
The team of Fu Hanshu, Mao Yuyang, Huwei, Wuyi and Ge Rongchen won the national second prize. By understanding the production mechanism and reporting framework of Western media, the team tried to identify the bias and distortion hidden behind the words and symbols, so that Chinese medias can respond more specifically and have a more advantaged position in public opinions.
The team of Yuan Zonghao, Meng Sinan, Gao Yixuan, Long Yi and Dan Tingting won the national third prize. Based on 486 crowdfunding projects for serious diseases, they analyzed the impact of social capital, family economic status and network platforms on fundraising results.
The academic work of Yang Can, Wang Jiaao, Qin Jin and Lu Yutong was recommended to the national Competition. They analyzed legal samples from five provinces and proposed two new schemes to solve the pecuniary debt contract deadlock.
Capital “Challenge Cup” Competition: to innovate on a broad platform
Relying on the school academic competition—the “Innovation Cup”, RUC has encouraged the wining teams to sign up for the Capital “Challenge Cup” Competition since this March.
A total of 163 students have participated in the Capital “Challenge Cup” Competition, winning four grand prizes, four first prizes, 11 second prizes and 14 third prizes.
The “Innovation Cup” Competition: to cultivate and guide academic talents
The “Innovation Cup” Competition is preliminary campus competition of the national and capital “Challenge Cup”. It was established in 1998 and has been held for 25 years. Till now, the “Innovation Cup” has nurtured a large number of outstanding academic works and academic talents.
In recent years, the Competition shows the following three distinct characteristics:
1. Root in the reality of China, respond to the questions of the time
The academic works of the 24th and 25th “Innovation Cup” Competition show the responsibility that Chinese college students take. The research topics range from the Beijing Winter Olympics to “double reduction” policy in education, meaning that the students care about current political hot issues, and are trying their best to propose practical plans and solutions.
Besides, the 24th “Innovation Cup” Competition firstly opened the race track for social practice, where students answer questions from deep practical research in every aspect of the society. Since its establishment, more than 70 research teams have transformed their investigation reports to academic works.
2. Develop diverse race tracks, inspire students’ creativity
Focusing on higher education governance and the youth groups, the 24th “Innovation Cup” Competition opened two new race tracks tailored for youth questions.
In the higher education governance track, the students are enlightened from their courses, programs and life experience, trying to provide suggestions on talent training, course teaching and campus governance.
In the youth research track, hot spots as subscribing the moment of Wechat and mutual aid in virtual community are captured by students, who try to investigate the law behind these phenomena, from the respects of career development, social network and voluntary services.
In addition, to catch up with frontier technologies, the 25th “Innovation Cup” Competition opened a new race track—“New Digital Technology and Humanities and Social Science”, encouraging students to investigate the application and challenges of digital technology used in fields like industrial development, international politics and judicial cases.
3. Improve students’ academic aptitude, facilitate in-depth exploration
Since September 2022, RUC has held a series of activities, such as the “Innovation workshop” and the thematic forum on “Chinese youth and Chinese path to modernization”, to help polish students’ academic works. These activities not only provide an opportunity for students to share academic experience, but also help their works to step on higher level competitions.
Now, the 26th “Innovation Cup” Competition is about to start. Hopefully there will be more excellent works in 2024.
