Xidian University is one of the earliest universities in China to carry out research on cryptography and information countermeasure, having profound academic accumulation. In 1959, the University took the lead in the study of secret communication in China; in 1993, it was approved to establish a doctoral program in cryptography, which was one of the first two doctoral programs in cryptography in China and the only doctoral program outside the military; in 2001, it established an undergraduate major in information security on the basis of cryptography discipline and was one of the first universities in the country to offer this major; in 2011, it achieved the approval of the first-level discipline of science of command and became the only authorization point of the national key discipline of cryptography and the first-level discipline of military science outside the military. In January 2016, the University was among the first batch to be granted the right to confer doctoral degrees in the first-level discipline of cyberspace security. In 2017, cyber security was approved as a national defense characteristic subject by the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.
In 2014, the University seized the opportunity to set up the first independent School of Cyber Engineering in the country after the establishment of the Central Cyber Security and Informatization Leading Group, and established the Information Security Collaborative Innovation Center at the same time; in April 2016, Academician Zheng Xiaojing was invited as the only university president to participate in the National Symposium on Cybersecurity and IT Application (on April 19th) hosted by General Secretary Xi Jinping. In addition, as the leading unit, the School has jointly established the Information Security Collaborative Innovation Center with 9 units including CEC and the Institute of Information Engineering of CAS, providing a strong support for the University to carry out national key scientific research work on cyber security. In December 2015, the University signed an agreement with Beijing Institute of Information Science and Technology (National Institute of Cryptography) to carry out in-depth cooperation in mutual personnel recruitment, graduate education, scientific research, academic exchanges and other aspects, so as to promote the deep industry-university-research integration and jointly serve the major needs of the country. At present, the School has first-class performance in platform system, faculty team, scientific research, talent training and other aspects in China. In September 2017, the University ranked first in terms of overall performance and was awarded the title of "National First-class Cyber Security School Construction Demonstration Project University" jointly selected by the Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission and the Ministry of Education.
The School's teaching and research platform system is perfect and outstanding. At present, it has a state-level teaching team for information security, a state-level experimental teaching demonstration center for computer network and information security, a state-level virtual simulation experiment center for network and information security, and other state-level teaching platforms for cyber security, which provide top teaching conditions in China for the training and construction of cyber security talents . The School also has an Information Security Center of the State Key Laboratory of Integrated Services Networks, Shaanxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Network and System Security, Key Laboratory of Electronic Information Countermeasure and Simulation Technology of the Ministry of Education, Innovation Team of the Ministry of Education for Key Network and Information Security Technologies, and other national scientific research platforms, providing a good platform for the scientific research of the first-class cyber security school. In July 2016, it cooperated with Shaanxi Public Security Network to build the Shaanxi Cyberspace and Information Security Application Technology Laboratory to support Shaanxi's construction of a national team that performs major tasks of national cyberspace security. In November 2016, it jointly established Xidian-360 Cyber Security Innovation Institute with Qihoo 360 Technology Co.,Ltd. Chairman Zhou Hongyi serves as the Dean of the Institute. The Institute is positioned at the frontier technology innovation and high-level personnel training in the field of cyber security, attracting and gathering high-level cyber security research and development teams. The School has also signed cooperation agreements with key domestic backbone units in the field of cyberspace security like the National Time Service Center of CAS, Guangdong Information Technology Security Evaluation Center, Venustech and Ant Financial Services, jointly committed to building a first-class government-industry-university-research collaborative innovation platform in the field of cyberspace security.
The faculty of the School is strong in scale and strength. It currently has more than 120 full-time and part-time teachers, of which 100% of full-time teachers have doctoral degrees, and more than 80% have overseas experience. The School has the only innovation team of the Ministry of Education and the national teaching team in the field of information security in China. The School has a variety of outstanding talents, including double hired academicians, leading talents of scientific and technological innovation of "Ten-thousand Talents Program", state-level candidates for "New Century Talents Project", and young and middle-aged leading talents of the Ministry of Science and Technology, forming a domestic first-class cyber security faculty team which leads in scale. In the previous two National Cyber Security Awards, Academician Shen Changxiang, Director of the Academic Committee of the School, won the 2016 "Cyber Security Outstanding Talent Award", Professor Ma Jianfeng won the 2017 "Cyber Security Excellent Talent Award", and Professor Hu Yupu and Professor Li Hui respectively won 2016 and 2017 "Cyber Security Excellent Teacher Award";Information Theory and Coding Theorywritten and compiled by Professor Wang Yumin and Professor Li Hui,Computer System Securitywritten and compiled by Professor Ma Jianfeng, andCyber Security-Technology and Practicecoedited by Professor Wang Yumin won the "Cyber Security Excellent Teaching Material Award".
The scientific research achievements of the School are outstanding. The School has now formed distinctive research directions like wireless network security, cryptography science and engineering, data security, and system security. Since the establishment, the School has jointly undertaken 11 key special research tasks of the national key research and development plan "cyberspace security" with the Institute of Information Engineering of CAS, CETC, CEC, 360 and other units; and it has cooperated with CETC and China aerospace agencies to undertake National Defense 973 Project, the national defense basic scientific research project and other major projects. The School has achieved a series of landmark achievements in wireless network security, cryptographic design and analysis, data security, etc.: 1) It proposed a heterogeneous multi-domain wireless network security association management system architecture and an extensible access security system architecture, and cooperated to develop two international ITU standards, which won the second prize of the State Technological Invention Award; 2) It proposed the cloud database system encryption reference structure, and developed "Qindun" cloud encryption database system, which won the "Gold Award" and "Best Business Investment Value Award" of the National Scientific and Technological Workers Innovation and Entrepreneurship Contest at the 18th Annual Conference of China Association for Science and Technology in 2016.
The scale and training model of students of the School are in the lead among universities in the country. The School has established a complete training system for bachelors, masters, and doctors, and the "Research and Practice of Information Security High-level Innovative Talent Training System" has won the second prize of state-level teaching award. There are currently more than 1,700 undergraduates and graduate students in the School. A total of 320 undergraduates are enrolled each year, of which 160 are majoring in Information Security, 60 in Cyber Engineering, 60 in Cyberspace Security, and 40 in Cyberspace Security Experimental Class (selected every year out of all the freshmen in the whole University). A total of 280 graduate students are enrolled each year. The employment rate of the first batch of graduates was 100%, of which the average annual salary of the first batch of graduates with bachelor degree was more than 200,000, and the postgraduate rate was 52%. It has repeatedly achieved good results in many competitions such as the National College Student Information Security Contest, Internet + National College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, and the National Contemporary Undergraduate Mathematical Contest in Modeling. In June 2015, the School became one of the first two pilot bases in China for cyber security talent training of the Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, focusing on the cultivation of students' practical and innovative capabilities. Since 2016, the School has implemented "3+1" training mode for two consecutive years, focusing on strengthening the training of students' cyber security practice capabilities. At the same time, the School vigorously promotes the transition from "I am asked to learn" to "I want to learn", actively explores new teaching model reforms, and promotes the introduction of "flipped classroom" and other teaching models withModern Cryptographycourse as a pilot. In terms of practical teaching, it explores and conducts "programming marathon", making students to experience the fun and responsibility of active learning, and comprehensively improving the quality of talent training.
