Elsevier officially released the list of "Highly Cited Chinese Researchers 2025" on January 30, 2026. The list uses Scopus,one of the world’s most authoritative citation and indexing databases, as the source of statistics for Chinese scholars' research achievements,based on a methodology developed by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy.The list has been released for the twelfth consecutive yearand received high attention from domestic scholars, with Elsevier providing data support and technical implementation for the list. The list is not only one of the key yardsticks for measuring the academic influence of institutions,but alsoreflects the distribution of scientific research talent and the disciplinary strengths of institutions in China and the disciplinary strengths of institutions, precisely mapping the core competitiveness of universities and research institutions in key technology fields.
Four professors from the School of Automation at Southeast University were selected (listed in alphabetical order by surname) : Professor Li Shihua (Control Science and Engineering), Professor Zhou Donghua (Control Science and Engineering), Professor Wen Guanghui (Systems Science), and Professor Liu Guangcan (Information and Communication Engineering).
Professor Li Shihua was admitted to the Juvenile Class of Southeast University in 1991 and received his bachelor's degree (1995), master's degree (1998), and doctorate (2001) from Southeast University. He is a distinguished professor of Jiangsu Province, Chief Professor of Southeast University, Dean of the School of Automation, President of the Jiangsu Automation Society, Councilor of the Chinese Association of Automation, Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), Fellow of the Asia-Pacific Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAIA), and fellow of the Chinese Association of Automation. Recipient of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars.
Mainly engaged in research on nonlinear control theory and applications of mechatronic systems, including non-smooth control theory, interference observation control theory and its application in various types of mechatronic systems, etc. Has completed more than 40 scientific research projects, and the research results have generated significant economic benefits for the enterprise.He has published three monographs in Chinese and English, more than 200 SCI-indexed papers, with over 38,000 citations on Google Scholar. The research achievements have won the first prize and Second prize of Natural Science of the Ministry of Education once each (both ranked first), the International Academic Paper Award nine times, and the prestigious international academic award in the field of mechatronic systems - Yongshou Award. Included in Clarivate's list of highly Cited Researchers for eight consecutive years from 2017 to 2024 and Elsevier's list of highly cited Chinese researchers for eleven consecutive years from 2015 to 2025.
Professor Zhou Donghua (Control Science and Engineering), Professor and doctoral supervisor of School of Automation, Southeast University, Chief Scientist of Institute of Intelligent Unmanned Systems, and Director of National and Local Joint Engineering Research Center for Mine Safety Detection Technology and Automation Equipment. Ph.D. from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, postdoctoral fellow from Zhejiang University. Former Director of the Department of Automation at Tsinghua University, Vice President of Shandong University of Science and Technology, Director of the Teaching Steering Committee for Automation of Higher Education Institutions of the Ministry of Education, member of the Discipline Evaluation Group of Control Science and Engineering of The State Council for the sixth and seventh terms, and director of the Fault Diagnosis and Safety Committee of the Chinese Association of Automation for the third, fourth and fifth terms.He is a recipient of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, a Changjiang Scholar, a leading talent of the Ten Thousand Talents Program, the leader of the National Natural Science Foundation of China's Innovative Research Group, and the head of the Huang Danyan-style Teacher team in national universities, and enjoys the special government allowance of The State Council. He also serves as a member of the IFAC Technical Committee on Process Fault Diagnosis and Safety and vice president of the Chinese Association of Automation.
The main research areas include dynamic system fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant control, operational safety assessment theory, etc.As the first recipient, he has received 3 national awards (including 2 second prizes of the National Natural Science Award and 1 second prize of the National Teaching Achievement Award) and 5 first prizes of science and technology at the provincial, ministerial and national academic societies. He has received honors such as the Young Teacher Award of the Ho Ying-dong Education Foundation, the National Outstanding Postdoctoral Award, the Sixth China Youth Science and Technology Award, the National New Century Hundred Thousand Thousand Talents, and the National Outstanding Science and Technology Worker. He is a leading talent in the Shandong Province Taishan Scholars' Advantageous and Characteristic Discipline Talent Team and an expert in the Shandong Province Taishan Scholars' Climbing Program. Selected as a highly Cited Researcher, in the list of the world's top 2% of scientists, and elected as IEEE/ AAIA/ IET/ CAA Fellow.
Professor Wen Guanghui (Systems Science), Vice Dean of the School of Automation, Southeast University, Chief Professor (second-class Professor) of Southeast University, Doctoral Supervisor, Master Supervisor, IET Fellow, recipient of the China Youth Science and Technology Award, recipient of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, Recipient of the Ministry of Education's National Youth Talent Selection, recipient of the National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars Deputy Director of Jiangsu National Center for Applied Mathematics.
He has long been engaged in research in the fields of distributed control theory and control engineering, network swarm intelligence theory and technology. More than 300 academic papers have been published in top journals such asNature Portfolio Journals, Research, The Innovation, IEEE Transactions, and in top CCF-A conferences (AAAI, IJCAI, etc.), five academic monographs have been published,and his publications have been cited over 10,000 times in SCI-indexed literature. One Best Paper Award in an international academic journal and six Best paper awards at domestic and international academic conferences. Served in international journals IEEE/ASME Trans. Mechatronics, IEEE Trans. Control of Network Systems, IEEE Trans. Neural Networks and Learning Systems, IEEE Trans. Industrial Informatics, IEEE Trans. Fuzzy Systems, IEEE J. Emerging and Selected Topics in Industrial Electronics, IEEE Trans. Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Editorial Board member of Systems and Asian J. Control, Distinguished Editorial Board Member of Asian J. Control and IEEE Trans. Industrial Informatics. Served on the editorial boards of the Chinese core journals Acta Automatica Sinica, Control Theory & Applications, and Systems Engineering & Electronics Technology. Vice Secretary-General of the Chinese Society of Command and Control, Chairperson of the Education and Training Committee of the Chinese Society of Command and Control, and Vice Chairperson of the Embodied Intelligence Committee of the Chinese Society of Command and Control; He has presided over more than 30 research projects including the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, the National Natural Science Foundation of China Enterprise Joint Key Project, the Ye Qisun Science Foundation Key Project, and the Ministry of Science and Technology Key Research and Development Program Project. More than 90 national invention patents have been applied for, and 72 have been granted; One international PCT patent (U.S. invention patent) was granted. 1 First Prize of National First-Class Society for Technological Invention (ranked first), 1 First Prize of Science and Technology Award (ranked first), 4 provincial and ministerial awards, 1 Gold Award of Geneva International Invention Exhibition (ranked first), ARC DECRA Fellow, Asia-Pacific Neural Network Society Young Outstanding Research Award and other academic honors.
Professor Liu Guangcan (Information and Communication Engineering), Professor of the School of Automation, Southeast University, National Young Talent. More than 60 CCF A-class papers such as NeurIPS/ICML have been published, and Google Scholar has cited more than 10,000 times. Received the First Prize of Natural Science from the Chinese Institute of Electronics, the Wu Wenjun Artificial Intelligence Outstanding Young Scientist Award, and has long served as the Area Chair for international conferences such as ICML/NeurIPS. Research focuses on low-dimensional models and optimization (machine learning/computer vision), artificial intelligence robustness.
Professor Pan Yongping (Computer Science and Technology), Professor and Doctoral supervisor at Southeast University, National High-level Young Talent Introduced overseas.
For a long time, he has been dedicated to the fundamental and applied research of intelligent robots. His major academic contribution lies in proposing the theory of compressed information-driven compound learning and successfully applying it to robot online learning and control. Representative research results have been published in top journals in the fields of automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence, such asIEEE-TAC,IEEE-TRO,IEEE-TMECh,IEEE-TNNLS, Automatica, and Annual Reviews in Control. More than 200 academic papers have been published so far, including over 140 journal papers. Google Scholar and the Web of Science core collection have been cited more than 9,100 and 7,000 times respectively (with more than 6,300 citations from others). Served as Chair of the Guangzhou Chapter of the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society, professional editor of Frontiers in Robotics and AI, and editorial board member of several top international journals. Has received several best paper awards at international academic conferences, including the ICRA Best Automation Paper Nomination Award, a top conference in the field of robotics. Consecutive years of inclusion in Clarivate's Global Highly Cited Researchers (2019), Elsevier's Highly Cited Chinese Researchers List (2021-2025), and Stanford's annual list of the world's top 2% Scientists (2017-2024) and lifetime List (2022-2024).
Zhang Kaihua (Computer Science and Technology), professor at the School of Automation, Southeast University, mainly focuses on low-altitude intelligent visual perception (target segmentation, tracking, detection). More than 30 papershave been published in top international journals and conferences such as IEEE T-PAMI, IJCV, IEEE T-IP, IEEE T-MM, IEEE T-CSVT, CVPR, ICCV, and ECCV, with more than 11,000 citations on Google Scholar. Selected for Jiangsu Province's 333 High-level Talent Training Program twice in 2016 and 2022; Distinguished Young Talent of Jiangsu Province in 2017; In 2018, he/she won the First Prize of Natural Science of the Ministry of Education (3/5) and the First Prize of Teaching and Research Achievement of Jiangsu Province (Research category) (4/5); Second Prize of the CCF Science and Technology Award for Natural Science in 2020 (1/2); 2022 CCF-CV Lasting Impact Work Award (1/3); ICME Best Student Paper Award (Corresponding Author) 2023, the flagship international conference in Multimedia Field; Winner of the 2017 International Facial Keypoint Localization Competition; 2017 ImageNet Competition Champion; VOT-LT2022 Recall Evaluation Champion of the International Authority competition 2022. Currently serves as the Area Chair of the CCF Class A conference ICML and the Senior Program Chair of AAAI. Selected as an Elsevier China Highly Cited Researcher for six consecutive years from 2020 to 2025.
