At present, applied undergraduate universities face practical challenges in fostering virtue and talent, including the lack of emotional recognition, misaligned legal recognition, and deviations in achievement recognition—essentially reflecting a deficiency or misplacement of recognition. Therefore, guided by recognition theory, universities should build an all-round and multi-level approach to fostering virtue and talent across three dimensions: creating an educational environment with humanistic care, improving the student-centered institutional system, and establishing an integrated evaluation system of morality and skills, so as to ultimately cultivate high-quality applied talents with moral character, professional skills and a strong sense of responsibility who adapt to regional economic and social development.