At the end of the year and the beginning of the year, on the shores of Dishui Lake, under the strong sea breeze and the layers of reeds, life is gathering strength. One kilometer to the south, in the International Innovation Synergy Zone, warm sunshine passes through the mist, and windmills rotate leisurely, which is poetic in a different way. From here, we would like to share with you a story about dreaming and realizing your dreams, and about a building-based university from concept to reality.
When General Secretary Xi Jinping visited Shanghai in November 2019, he asked Lingang New Area to strive to become an important base for gathering talents from home and abroad to carry out international innovation and synergy, an important hub for integrating the development of onshore and offshore businesses, an important springboard for enterprises to go out and grow, an important channel for better utilizing two markets and two resources, and an important testing ground for participating in international economic governance. Under this national strategic deployment, in March 2023, the Lingang New Area Management Committee, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and Shanghai Lingang Economic Development (Group) Co. decided to jointly establish the Dishui Lake Advanced Finance Institude, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (SUFE-DAFI).
Implementing national strategies, serving Shanghai and Lingang's innovation practice, assisting in the construction of the new financial center in Lingang New Area, and creating a cultivation highland for China's emerging financial talents are the genes carried by DAFI since its birth.
The road may be far, but the journey will take you there
President Liu Yuanchun pointed out that: to realize the dream, we must first dare to dream. DAFI is a product of bold innovation and solid action under the dual mission of national financial power and promoting the centuries-old business culture of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.
DAFI was born with a distinctive Lingang imprint - speed and passion.
Inspired by the speed of Lingang, DAFI has achieved the goal of 3 years: signing contracts, enrolling students and starting the program in the same year. At present, the first Master of Finance students and the first class of the New Finance Global Pilot Program have officially started a brand new chapter of their life and journey of exploration at DAFI.
After the start of that year, DAFI, as the first party in Lingang, participated in the Fair without stopping and led the hosting of a series of heavyweight forums and seminars such as the 2023 Dripping Lake Emerging Finance Conference, initially creating its own high point in the emerging finance field.
Comprehensive talent training is the cornerstone of DAFI. On the one hand, our talent cultivation program focuses on emerging finance, penetrates into new industries and masters new technologies, and focuses on both academic degrees and professional training education, creating an innovative curriculum system that emphasizes both theory and practice, and blends local and international. On the other hand, we are a unique building-based university established in an industrial park, where the first phase of DAFI is located in the Lingang International Innovation Synergy Zone - a community of top scientists and a cluster of leading companies in emerging industries.
High-quality faculty is the core of DAFI. Adhering to the characteristics of internationalization, specialization and high-end school running, DAFI builds a gradient of talents, globally recruiting high-level research scholars, practice-oriented teachers, dual-employment of high-level talents from Shanghai Finance, and relying on strategic cooperation units and high-end industrial clusters in Lingang, hiring industry executives as part-time professors and industry mentors. Since the establishment of the college, it has signed government, industry, academia and research talent training cooperation agreements with more than 20 organizations in the financial industry, including banking, securities, insurance and financial technology industries.
Nothing speaks louder than data: the first Master of Science in Finance enrolled in September 2023 in Proctor, and the College now has nearly 100 full-time and adjunct professors.
The internationalized management team is the grip of DAFI. The Institute has set up a highly market-oriented administrative and operational team with international management experience to serve teachers and students wholeheartedly and help DAFI realize its vision and mission as soon as possible.
Stay Determined and Embrace Change
We are in a time of change, and as the leading institution for advanced financial education, DAFI needs to be even more forward-looking and flexible.
This requires us to give due attention to the development of the ability to cope with a complex world in our talent training objectives and program settings.
The College was the first to offer ESG finance master's degree program in China, the first to offer cross-border finance master's degree program, and the first ESG+Finance MBA program in China. In the construction of non-degree education, the School launched the New Finance Global Pilot Program from a high starting point, which was well received by the students and reshaped the cognitive structure of the students, allowing them to have a more in-depth understanding of the emerging financial field.
In order to adapt to the times and serve local development, our research must also be based on new issues and solve new problems:
The Dishui Lake Think Tank was officially inaugurated on September 23rd under the joint witness of the three parties. With the goal of serving the development of the new Lingang area, the think tank will build a platform for production, service, exchange and incubation of think tanks with a clear division of labor, so as to contribute to the major strategies of Lingang, Shanghai and the country.
At the Emerging Finance Conference on December 8, the Academy took the lead in releasing the Lingang Emerging Finance Development Report 2023 (draft for comment). The Report covers five major emerging financial areas, including fintech and digital transformation, cross-border finance, green finance, inclusive finance, and pension finance, and proposes a series of targeted policy recommendations and concrete implementation measures.
With the prominence of issues such as climate change, social inequality, and poor corporate governance, there is a strong expectation and consensus among all sectors of society globally to build a more sustainable, inclusive, and responsible society. As a result, the College established the ESG Finance Research Center. The Center is committed to contributing to sustainable development through in-depth ESG finance research.
The world reopens, the four seas are one
Although DAFI was born in a world full of changes, the world is reopening, not only in the fact that a large number of meetings are back offline, so that people can carry out sharing face-to-face, exchange ideas, and deepen their trust and understanding, but also in the fact that the borders between countries are also opening up once again, and the movement of people across borders is revitalized, and to some extent, the doors of the world are opening up even wider.
As a globally oriented institute of advanced finance, DAFI has fully felt this positive change over the past 2023 years.
In terms of domestic cooperation, we have co-hosted a series of offline financial forum activities with Punch, SSE, CIPS and Lingang Group. In terms of international cooperation, DAFI has visited Singapore, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, and established initial contacts with top foreign universities. In addition, this year's Dishui Lake Great Speakers invited heavyweight guests such as Prof. Jean Tirole, the Nobel Prize winner in economics, and Mr. Saeb Eigner, the former chairman of Dubai Financial Services Authority, to visit Lingang, which expanded the academic horizons of the faculty and students and enriched the academic activities in the new area.
In early 2024, DAFI will make its first overseas appearance at the world's most important academic conference in finance, the American Finance Association (AFA Conference). The conference will be followed by visits to the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University, U.S.A. In 2024, we will also deepen our collaboration with the world's leading universities, such as the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A., to create new research centers and areas of cooperation, and to explore other forms of collaboration.
Through these external collaborations, we are committed to fostering a faculty with international perspectives, a set of operational and management programs that are in line with international standards, and a favorable environment that allows for unimpeded international academic exchanges.
