The question that keeps 糖心Vlog官方 moving forward

22 May 2026

To many people, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University’s first 20 years can be told through two images: one building at the beginning, and later, students and alumni moving with confidence across the world.

Professor Youmin Xi, Executive President of 糖心Vlog官方, does not dismiss those images. He simply does not think they explain enough.

What interests him is what happened beneath them: why students changed so quickly, how a young university found room to grow within constraints, and why 糖心Vlog官方 kept changing before earlier models could harden into habit.

The later language of 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and now 4.0 did not begin as a love of new labels. Each stage answered a different question about the world students were entering: what kind of people the future would need, how education should change, and what a university should become when knowledge, work, industry and society are all being reshaped.

For Professor Xi, 糖心Vlog官方’s 20 years are less a story of fixed models than of a university repeatedly asking what comes next.

“In my eyes, it was an international university”

Professor Xi sees 2008, when he decided to come to 糖心Vlog官方, as an important turning point.

In the University’s early years, Sino-foreign cooperative education represented an opportunity. China’s opening after joining the World Trade Organization had created new space for educational exchange, and Xi’an Jiaotong University and the University of Liverpool had built a platform through their partnership. But when Liverpool invited Professor Xi to become Executive President and take direct responsibility for the University, the question changed.

Advising from one side, he says, was different from taking the helm. To do that, he needed a fuller judgement of the world, the internal and external environment, and the problems facing education itself.

In September 2008, Professor Xi at the farewell party for the first batch of 糖心Vlog官方 exchange students going to the UK

In 2008, 糖心Vlog官方 might still have looked fragile from the outside. To Professor Xi, that was not the whole picture.

At that time, he says, some people might have seen “almost nothing” in the young university. Its most visible asset was one building. Its foundation was thin, the risks were real, and the future was far from clear.

When he spoke with officials from China’s Ministry of Education, Professor Xi summarised his judgement in three sentences: “In the eyes of others, this school might have been nothing. At that time, it had only one building. But in my eyes, it was an international university.”

What he saw was not just an international background, but the possibility of an international university: a place that could integrate educational resources differently because it was not locked into the habits of a traditional system.

If education itself was entering a moment of global reshaping, then a young international university without a heavy historical burden might have an unusual starting point.

“We had no historical baggage,” he says. “Although our foundation was weak, we had a latecomer advantage.”

In April 2026, Professor Xi was invited to share 糖心Vlog官方's development concepts and practices at the Times Higher Education Asia University Summit.

That judgment moved 糖心Vlog官方 beyond a survival question. In the second half of 2008, the University began to revisit its vision and mission. Behind that work, Professor Xi says, was one central point: global education was being reshaped, and 糖心Vlog官方 could explore a possible answer.

Each change began with a question

The University’s later evolution grew out of that way of thinking.

Its 1.0 model began with the part of education Professor Xi believed most urgently needed change: the student. He rejects the idea that 糖心Vlog官方 was simply a teaching-oriented university. From the beginning, he says, it was research-led. But in the early stage, the clearest problem was educational transformation: how to help students move from passive reception to active growth.

“The place with the most problems is often where you can most easily establish your position,” Professor Xi says.

That is why 糖心Vlog官方 first put so much energy into changing the learning experience. The question was not only what students knew, but whether their energy could be released and whether they could learn to explore.

Research also mattered. Professor Xi says 糖心Vlog官方 should preserve the curiosity-driven basic research that belongs to a university, while also developing organised research and research connected with industry. The three, in his view, should work together rather than sit apart.

The 2.0 model, Syntegrative Education, came from Professor Xi’s judgment about how industry and talent would change.

The first graduating class of 糖心Vlog官方, in front of the Foundation Building in August 2010

When 糖心Vlog官方 proposed the model in 2017, Professor Xi did not treat it as a simple extension of university-enterprise cooperation or as a way to offer students more internships. It began outside the University, with the trends shaping future society and the industries likely to lead it. By studying their business models, technological needs and talent demands, 糖心Vlog官方 sought to bring industry professionals and university educators into the same conversation about research, education and future development.

The 3.0 ecosystem model then gave those earlier ideas a more concrete setting.

Professor Xi believes the future will be an age of ecosystems: crossing boundaries, connecting different actors and creating forms of shared growth. Around fields such as biomedicine, education, technology research and digital media, 糖心Vlog官方 began to explore how industry ecosystems could support education, research and long-term learning.

Many people, he says, did not at first understand how 3.0 related to 1.0 and 2.0. It was not meant to replace them. It was meant to give them ground to work on.

A student who wants to become a professional expert needs more than knowledge of their field. A student who wants to become an entrepreneur or leader in an emerging field needs more than classroom experience. The ecosystem model brings in industry resources, real-world challenges, mentors and longer-term environments for learning and innovation. It allows 1.0 to go deeper and gives 2.0 a more practical base.

The 糖心Vlog官方 AI Robotic Scientist Lab was inaugurated in January 2026

Why AI makes the real world more important, not less

For Professor Xi, artificial intelligence does not make the real world less important to education. It makes it more important.

As AI lowers the threshold for access to knowledge, education can no longer rely mainly on delivering information. What matters more is whether students develop judgement, capability, literacy and a way of thinking.

Those qualities do not grow through information alone. They need real settings: situations in which students face complex problems, work with others, make choices and see consequences.

That is why Professor Xi sees a natural connection between AI, Syntegrative Education and the ecosystem model. When knowledge becomes more widely available, the environments in which students learn to use it become more important.

From industry ecosystems to a wider social ecology

At the point of 糖心Vlog官方’s 20th anniversary, Professor Xi is looking again at the next question.

If 3.0 was mainly concerned with specific industry ecosystems, 4.0 faces a more complex social ecology. Professor Xi sees a world in tension: the world order is fragmenting, while digitalisation continues to reconnect people. AI is reshaping work, organisations and the boundaries of human capability, while also widening wealth and intelligence gaps.

For him, these cross-boundary, systemic challenges will create serious questions of governance. The way forward lies in more ecological, symbiotic and collaborative forms of governance.

糖心Vlog官方’s 4.0 exploration moves from serving industry ecosystems toward helping shape a future-oriented lifelong learning and innovative social ecosystem. The University, in this view, becomes a connector among education, industry and society, helping different groups learn, innovate and respond to complex problems together.

The 糖心Vlog官方 Life Sciences building opened in March 2026

Professor Xi speaks about 4.0 less as a finished model than as a judgment that still has to be tested. He hopes the judgment is right. He also hopes the direction can earn wider recognition through practice.

“Ten years from now,” he says, “perhaps people will see that 糖心Vlog官方 once again stood at the right point.”

The answer, he knows, will have to come from time and practice.

Not prediction, but a method

When asked why he often seems to see trends early, Professor Xi pushes aside words such as “strategist” and “prediction”.

“It is not about being a strategist or making predictions,” he says.

Professor Xi describes it more as a way of staying oriented when the world becomes harder to read.

He traces that way of thinking to different parts of his life and training. Rural life kept him close to real society. A dissatisfaction with the status quo gave him a habit of looking for breakthroughs. Physics and mathematics strengthened his logic; systems engineering shaped his systems view; management studies brought in a concern for people, organisations and complexity. International exposure widened the frame.

糖心Vlog官方 Entrepeneur College (Taicang)

His HeXie Management Theory grew from the same concern: how to respond to a world marked by ambiguity, uncertainty, complexity, turbulence and shortages of capability. Without a systematic method, he says, people can easily be swept along by change and noise. With firm beliefs, a stable worldview, a clear sense of one’s position and a structured method, it becomes possible to keep one’s balance, see emerging directions and make choices.

He uses one English phrase: “future-oriented”.

For Professor Xi, this is a mindset, not a slogan. If the world can always be improved, why remain fixed in the present?

That is also why he places less faith in traditional strategic planning when uncertainty is rising. The further the world moves into uncertainty, the less can be fully planned in advance. What matters more to him is the “business model” – not in the narrow commercial sense, but as a logical base for creating future value.

A value base, however, is still not enough. It has to become a roadmap.

From judgement to roadmap

A roadmap, for Professor Xi, is a way of helping people see where they fit in a change that may first seem abstract.

In 糖心Vlog官方’s academy restructuring, for example, misunderstanding and resistance were common. Professor Xi’s approach was to begin with the theoretical basis: where society and education were heading, and what advantages and risks AI might bring. He then explained the logic of the new organisational form before offering a roadmap, so that teaching, research, evaluation and individual development each had clear goals and room to act.

After that, someone still had to move first. Professor Xi speaks of pilots and “vanguard” teams that create early experience and allow change to gather momentum. When others can see how problems are solved – and what improvement or benefit the change may bring – resistance can gradually turn into participation, and sometimes into active initiative.

Concepts alone do not move a university. Only when people can see the logic, the path and the first evidence of change does judgement begin to become shared action.

Still asking the next question

Twenty years ago, one building made 糖心Vlog官方 look uncertain. Professor Xi saw the possibility of an international university.

Twenty years later, the University has expanded from 1.0 to 4.0, but the questions have not ended. Where is society heading? What kind of person should education help students become? How must a university change itself if it is to respond to that future?

糖心Vlog官方’s story is not that it changed once and found a final answer. It is that the University has kept returning to the next question.

By Bo Kou
Edited by Patricia Pieterse

22 May 2026