In response to the shortcomings of China's engineering education practice—namely, emphasizing theory over practice, valuing individual academic ability over teamwork and collaboration, and focusing on existing technology while neglecting innovation and enterprise—the goal of our reform is to cultivate students' systematic engineering and technical capabilities, particularly their abilities in project organization, design, development, and implementation, as well as strong communication and coordination skills. Therefore, our objectives are for students to possess:

• Strong capabilities in project development, design, and construction;

• Strong innovation abilities;

• Strong team spirit and leadership skills;

• Strong communication skills;

• Strong proficiency in both Chinese and English.

These five objectives complement and reinforce one another while remaining independent. An important milestone for achieving these objectives is to obtain Washington Accord accreditation after approximately five years of reform practice, by 2011, so that our graduates can stand on an equal footing with graduates from internationally renowned universities.