USTC held the inauguration ceremony of China-France Mathematics Talents Class (CFMTC) on January 16.

CFMTC will admit about 25 students each year from this fall semester. At least nine competitive students will be screened and selected to pursue Ph.D degree in France.

It is known that France leads the world in research capacity and talents pool in mathematics. China and France have witnessed achievements in the higher education of mathematics thanks to the long-term cooperation.

“Benefits have been magnified from the French training model of mathematics talents for a long term. CFMTC will be a new breakthrough for the School of Mathematical Sciences in talents training after Loo-keng Hua Class (another mathematics joint program in USTC). It will also be a big leap for USTC to build into a Double-First Class university (world-class universities and first-class disciplines). I sincerely hope CFMTC can be a new start for closer cooperation between the two parties on the cultivation of top mathematics talents,” said BAO Xinhe, the president of USTC.

Mr. Fabien CHAREIX of the Consulate General of France in Shanghai expressed his positive views on the joint program, “I look forward to seeing more education cooperation between two counties.” Professor Laurent LAFFORGUE, the Fields medalist of 2002 and the education director of CFMTC, explained why he joined the program. Professor Marc ROSSO of Paris VII introduced the French mathematics talents training system and shared his experiences of French mathematics education.

Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS, Paris) is a cradle for future scientists, in particular mathematicians. Its alumni include 12 Nobel Prize winners and 10 Fields medalists. As the most competitive one field, it admits only three to five foreign students in mathematics all over the world each year. In the last decade, however, more than ten students of USTC have passed the examination of the ENS, Paris. XIE Junyi, the first student of USTC who went to the ENS, Paris in 2005, has become a tenured Research Fellow of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (The National Center for Scientific Research, CNRS) in 2016. SHEN Shu, who had been admitted at the École Polytechnique, got a tenured position at Paris VI in 2017.

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 (Written and image by XU Yue, USTC News Center)