HUTB Nurtures "Gold Seeds" of Innovation in Fertile Soil of Hunan Culture
2025-11-20
Stepping onto the campus of HUTB, visitors are immediately embraced by an atmosphere where entrepreneurial passion intertwines with youthful vitality. At 8 a.m., the Maker Space is already packed with figures discussing plans. In the incessant chatter, some are revising business plans, others are debugging product models. Sunlight streams through the glass windows, spilling onto an inspiration wall covered with sticky notes and illuminating faces full of determination. "Everyone says our maker base has distinct HUTB characteristics," says the head of the university's innovation and entrepreneurship incubation base.
As a distinctive high-level multidisciplinary university, HUTB takes cultivating young entrepreneurial talent as a key mission in serving the regional economy. It has built a comprehensive, open-ended innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, continuously incubating "golden seeds" and helping startup projects grow into "golden fruits" that serve local development.
Institutional Engine Ignites Entrepreneurial Gene
Policy support serves as the crucial spark igniting young people's passion for entrepreneurship. Taking policy innovation as a breakthrough point, HUTB has built a comprehensive, multi-level policy support system through systematic review and precise implementation, creating a solid backbone for students with entrepreneurial dreams.
The university deeply integrates entrepreneurial policy resources from national, provincial, and municipal levels. It has meticulously compiled the College Student Entrepreneurship Policy Guide, enabling precise and direct access to policy benefits for every entrepreneur through a "one-click" convenient approach. Covering areas from tax reductions and project subsidies to venue support and financing assistance, the guide translates complex policy clauses into easy-to-understand practical information. It has become an essential "policy handbook" for students on their entrepreneurial journey.
HUTB has improved its Regulations on Managing Leave of Absence for Entrepreneurship, allowing undergraduate students to retain their student status for entrepreneurship for up to six years. The university also recognizes innovation and entrepreneurship achievements within its academic credit system. This initiative provides students with room to experiment and breaks down the time barrier between academics and starting a business, truly enabling them to "excel in both studies and entrepreneurship." The policy's "supportive flexibility" and "substantive strength" have encouraged many students to pursue their entrepreneurial ambitions with greater confidence.
"The core of new quality productive forces lies in scientific and technological innovation, and the foundation of scientific and technological innovation lies in talent." This statement by Chen Xiaohong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, precisely captures the essence of development. In her view, talent serves as the core engine driving innovation and the key to seizing the strategic high ground for future development. This philosophy not only highlights the university's profound understanding of talent strategy but also charts a clear course: to cultivate innovative talent through digital-intelligent education reform and empower the development of new quality productive forces.
Full-dimensional Safeguards Escorting Entrepreneurial Journey
Quality services serve as crucial nourishment for the robust growth of startups. HUTB has prioritized service enhancement to build a comprehensive support system featuring "dual-mentor guidance, targeted cultivation, and whole-process accompaniment." This framework provides entrepreneurial projects with full lifecycle backing from idea conception through development and expansion.
Externally, the university invites renowned entrepreneurs, technical experts, and investment specialists to contribute, addressing gaps in practical team experience. Internally, it encourages faculty to participate in industry training and corporate residency programs, enhancing their advisory capabilities. The current entrepreneurial mentor team, comprising over 300 members, covers diverse fields including industrial technology, business management, and finance economics, forming a powerful collective guidance force.
The university offers 16 incubation services across four key categories—core support, growth acceleration, business environment facilitation, and foundational guarantees—to address the full lifecycle needs of entrepreneurial projects. From workspace and equipment leasing to legal consulting, and from market promotion to financial agency services, this one-stop support system enables entrepreneurs to focus on their core business development.
In addition, the university actively cultivates an environment that inspires students to "aspire to innovate, dare to pioneer, and be capable of creating" by organizing flagship events such as "Integration and Innovation for the Future" and "Lushan Maker Forum." Meanwhile, the university utilizes various channels including official social media account operations and entrepreneurship sharing sessions to comprehensively consolidate the foundation of entrepreneurial culture. This effort allows the spirit of entrepreneurship to permeate every corner of the campus, igniting students' passion and inspiration for innovation, and making entrepreneurial culture a vital component of the campus culture. The university's "College Student Entrepreneurship Club" has served 5,590 innovation and entrepreneurship teams and incubated 279 startup companies over the past five years.
HUTB Builds Nurturing Harbor for Entrepreneurial Dreams
"Post-00s student Huang Xinlong successfully incubated 300 content creators during his studies, building a campus influencer matrix!" "The team led by Liu Zhiyi from the School of Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Computing stood out with their innovative project 'Eye of Horus' at a special review session for the Hunan College Student Venture Capital Fund, securing project funding approval..." Such entrepreneurial success stories are continually emerging at the HUTB University Student Entrepreneurship Incubation Base.
The university has innovatively created a cultivation model integrating "new-type R&D institutions + university incubation + industrial park acceleration." Leveraging the cutting-edge research resources of the Xiangjiang Laboratory, it directly channels R&D achievements from faculty and students of the "Hong Class" into the incubation base, achieving seamless transition from theory to practice.
By integrating resources from the government, enterprises, the university and other entities, the base has established a collaborative network characterized by resource sharing and complementary strengths. Here, entrepreneurs can obtain not only space and funding support but also connect with upstream and downstream industry chain resources and expand market channels, enabling rapid growth.
Cultivating Fertile Ground for a Thriving Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
Quality projects serve as the cornerstone of the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. HUTB has established a project cultivation mechanism integrating "faculty-student collaboration, alumni engagement, and industry-education-research synergy," attracting diverse high-quality resources and nurturing innovative projects to inject sustained vitality into the entrepreneurial environment.
In terms of faculty-student collaboration, the university encourages instructors to guide students in innovation and entrepreneurship practices, transforming research achievements into startup projects. Theoretical knowledge from the classroom is translated into innovative products and services through practical application, while students' creative ideas are developed into viable business plans under faculty mentorship. This model not only enhances students' practical skills but also accelerates the industrialization of academic research outcomes.
Numerous graduates return to their alma mater with successful experience and high-quality projects, sharing entrepreneurial insights and providing resource support to current students and faculty. The involvement of alumni enterprises not only brings funding, technology, and market channels, but also fosters the growth of student teams through mentorship mechanisms. This virtuous interaction between alumni and the university has cultivated an entrepreneurial culture characterized by experience transfer and intergenerational continuity.
Industry-education-research integration serves as a vital pathway for project cultivation at the university. HUTB actively introduces collaborative projects with industry leadership and certain revenue potential, signing agreements with enterprises to jointly promote disciplinary development, cultivate innovative talent, and facilitate the transformation of technological achievements. Through such deep cooperation, the university develops talent that better meets market needs and nurtures startup projects with enhanced market competitiveness.
Over the past five years, the university’s innovation and entrepreneurship incubation base has achieved remarkable results: students have won a total of 928 national awards and more than 2,800 provincial awards. As of 2025, the base has incubated 178 startup teams led by current students and faculty, 92 startup companies, 34 alumni enterprises, and 17 industry-education-research collaboration enterprises, spanning fields such as the digital economy, cultural creativity, and new-generation information technology. Among 279 high-quality entrepreneurial projects, 23 enterprises have surpassed the RMB10 million threshold in annual output. Notably, 80% of graduated startups choose to deepen their roots in Hunan, with 65% establishing headquarters in Changsha. This trend reflects the university’s strategic contribution to retaining talent within the province and underscores HUTB’s commitment to leveraging its institutional strengths to serve local economic development.
(Source: "Department of Human Resources and Social Security of Hunan Province" WeChat Official Account)
