On September 7, ahead of the 42nd Teachers' Day, the 2026 Qilu Most Beautiful Teachers release ceremony was held at Shandong Education Television. QUT's Smart Geotechnical and Deep Underground Engineering Innovation Teaching Team was named a 2026 Qilu Most Beautiful Teacher Team for its strong professional ethics, outstanding talent cultivation achievements and solid research strength.
The selection was jointly organized by the Publicity Department of the CPC Shandong Provincial Committee and the Shandong Provincial Department of Education. It aims to promote the spirit of educators and recognize outstanding teachers and teams with notable achievements in professional ethics, teaching, research, talent cultivation, rural revitalization and volunteer service. A total of 20 Qilu Most Beautiful Teachers or Teams were selected this year, and QUT was one of the three provincial universities whose teaching teams were honored.
Led by Professor Shi Wei, a young and middle-aged expert with outstanding contributions in Shandong Province, Shandong Excellent Teacher and provincial teaching master, the team has 24 core members, including four national-level talents and 10 provincial-level experts. It is a high-level teaching and research team with strong ethics, a sound structure and interdisciplinary strengths.
The team integrates major national engineering cases into classroom teaching and has built three national first-class courses. It has received 12 provincial teaching awards, including provincial curriculum-based ideological and political education demonstration courses, and three special prizes for Shandong teaching achievements. Over the past five years, the team has trained more than 2,500 undergraduate and graduate students and guided students to win over 90 national competition awards.
Focusing on key challenges in deep underground development and coastal disaster prevention, the team has won two national science and technology awards and seven first prizes of the Shandong Science and Technology Progress Award. Its independently developed intelligent oil reservoir regulation technology has generated benefits of more than 2 billion yuan, while its landslide early-warning technology has been applied in major projects including the Three Gorges Project, saving 820 million yuan in investment. The team has also provided long-term disaster prevention services and intelligent monitoring support in Shandong, contributing to public safety and rural revitalization.
Taking this honor as a new starting point, the university will further promote the exemplary role of outstanding teachers, encourage faculty members to carry forward the spirit of educators, devote themselves to teaching and research, and make new contributions to national infrastructure and major engineering projects, as well as to building China into a leading country in education.