Recently, the internationally renowned journal Nature published a feature report in its Careers section titled “Rising numbers of Asian and African PhD students choose to study in China.” A scene of international graduate students from the School of Civil Engineering at Southeast University studying in the field of intelligent construction was selected as the opening image of the report. Ali Fathy, an Egyptian doctoral student at the School, was also interviewed.
In the opening image, engineering graduate students from Egypt, Yemen, Indonesia, and Niger are observing a demonstration of an intelligent construction system independently developed by the School of Civil Engineering at Southeast University. This scene showcases the School’s practice of international talent cultivation in frontier directions such as intelligent construction.
Fathyis a third-year doctoral student in civil engineering and construction management at the School, who is an assistant lecturer at Tanta University in Egypt, says that he will teach his postgraduate students there “everything I have learnt in China”, including how to use AI tools to make their work more efficient. The knowledge that he has acquired in China, a country that has been successful in development through rapid modernization, he says, is useful and practical for him and his students because it is applicable to Egypt as a lower-middle-income country, he says. The report also published a photo of him participating in the Yangtze River Delta University International Student Dragon Boat Race with the Southeast University international student team, showing the campus life of international students at the School.
This report focuses on the trend of Asian and African international students coming to China to pursue doctoral degrees in recent years. According to official data cited in the report, there were about 380,000 international students in China in the 2024–2025 academic year, an increase of 15% over the previous academic year.
In recent years, the School of Civil Engineering has continued to advance international talent cultivation and continuously improved the quality of international students recruited. Relying on high-level research platforms such as the National Key Laboratory of Safety, Longevity and Health Operation of Long-Span Bridges, and the National and Local Joint Engineering Research Center for Intelligent Construction and Operation and Maintenance, the School has cultivated a group of high-level international engineering and technical talents who understand China and are friendly to China in directions such as intelligent construction and engineering management. Since 2016, the School has launched the all-English Master’s Program in Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering (MOSI) for Belt and Road partner countries, cultivating high-level management and technical talents in the field of infrastructure construction. At the same time, it has led the construction of the China–Pakistan Joint Laboratory on Intelligent Disaster Prevention for Major Infrastructure under the Belt and Road Initiative, promoting Chinese technical standards abroad and cultivating professional talents for both countries. This feature in Nature is a concentrated demonstration of the School’s achievements in international education.
