From November 28 to 30, the national finals of the 2025 Undergraduate New Liberal Arts Practice and Innovation Competition were held at Xi’an Jiaotong University (Xingqing Campus). After fierce competition, SEM’s “Three Sheep” team stood out from 454 teams representing 221 universities and won the National Gold Award. Their instructors—Mou Yupeng, Mi Lingyun, and Ding Zhihua—received the “Outstanding Instructor Award.”
Group Photo of the Team at the National Competition
The project team consists of ten undergraduate students, including Zhang Tieyan and Yan Yu. With the core goal of “removing obstacles in policy implementation and promoting the development of the circular economy,” the team advanced its work around four major components: theoretical modeling, empirical research, pain-point identification, and pathway optimization. Based on an interdisciplinary New Liberal Arts perspective, the project adopted mixed research methods such as questionnaires, in-depth interviews, and field investigations, covering 13 cities in Jiangsu Province. It accurately identified four major pain points—cognition, trust, process, and after-sales service. The team proposed a replicable ecological closed-loop solution of “policy guidance – service support – social co-governance,” contributing to consumption industry upgrading and the achievement of the “dual-carbon” goals, and providing the “Jiangsu Experience” for national trade-in practices in digital products.
Award Ceremony Scene
The 2025 Undergraduate New Liberal Arts Practice and Innovation Competition is a national innovation event in the field of New Liberal Arts construction, organized under the guidance of the Higher Education Department of the Ministry of Education, hosted by the National Center for New Liberal Arts Education Research, and co-organized by Xi’an Jiaotong University and Shandong University. With the goal of strengthening humanities practice education and cultivating high-quality, practice-oriented humanities talents, the competition comprises four categories: Literature-History-Philosophy, Economics-Management-Law, Education, and Arts, adopting a two-stage structure—preliminary round (online review + on-site competition) and final round (online review + on-site competition). Since its launch in July, the competition has received approximately 25,000 submissions from 423 universities, with more than 160,000 undergraduate and graduate participants. The gold award rate is less than 0.5%.
Group Photo of the Team at the Award Ceremony
For a long time, the School has attached great importance to cultivating students’ practical and innovative abilities, establishing a dedicated team of instructors to provide strong guidance for project implementation, offering solid support for students to transition “from classroom theory to practical innovation.” Winning the “Gold Award” in the national finals this time is not only a full recognition of our students’ innovative capabilities, academic literacy, and practical competence, but also strong evidence of the School’s efforts in deepening discipline development and promoting practical innovation. Moving forward, the School will continue to increase support for students’ participation in high-level disciplinary competitions, using competitions as a platform to stimulate their innovative potential in scientific and technological practice, help more students grow into practice-oriented and high-quality humanities talents, and transform talent “soft power” into a “hard support” for high-quality development.
Author: Zhang Tieyan
Photography: Jing Yiming
First Review: Liu Zirui
Second Review: Zhao Jie
Final Review: Li Xinchun
