Nanchang University

History

The history of Nanchang University traces back to Jiangxi Public Medical School, established in 1921, and National Chung Cheng (or Zhongzheng) University, established in 1940 and named after Chiang Kai-shek, president of the Republic of China.

In 1993, Jiangxi University and Jiangxi Industrial University were merged into Nanchang University. In 1997, Nanchang University was listed among the Top 100 key universities in China. In the year of 2004, the agreement on jointly developing Nanchang University was signed between the Government of Jiangxi Province and the Ministry of Education. NCU entered a new era of reform and development when it merged with Jiangxi Medical College in 2005.

Academic programs

NCU hosts a graduate school and 21 undergraduate schools including colleges of Liberal Arts, Foreign Language Studies, Art and Design, Law, Economics and Management, the Sciences, Life Science, Material Science and Engineering, Environmental Science and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Architectural Engineering, Computer Engineering, Education, Medicine, and Software. These schools offer 82 undergraduate majors out of 11 academic disciplines including the liberal arts, history, philosophy, economics, management, law, science, engineering, agriculture, education, general medicine, public health， pharmacy, nursing and four clinical schools. These undergraduate programs have an enrollment of approximately 36,000 full-time students.

Although all the schools offer their own graduate programs, these programs belong to a single graduate school administratively. The NCU Graduate School offers 21 Ph.D. programs and 175 master's degree programs with a graduate student body of about 6,800. In addition, NCU has two post-doctoral programs.

NCU emphasizes the importance of research. In addition to research labs and centers owned by individual schools, NCU owns and operates 26 national and provincial key laboratories and research centers and 56 basic training centers and professional labs.

NCU has a large-scale medical school. Not only does the medical school have a strong research orientation, it has 10 attached hospitals throughout the province. These hospitals accommodate the needs for teaching and internships for students of medicine.

Campus

NCU is composed of five campuses. Its main campus is located in Nanchang city, the capital city of Jiangxi Province. The main campus occupies an area of 300 hectares and is home to all of its undergraduate students, most graduate students, most research institutes and labs, and most faculty and staff.

Faculty and staff

NCU employs a teaching staff of 2,337, 52% of whom are professors and associate professors. Five of them are members of the distinguished Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering. A number of them have received awards for their excellence in teaching and research from various government agencies ranging from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Public Health and the Jiangxi Provincial Government.

International exchange and cooperation

NCU places great emphasis on international exchange and cooperation. It has established regular exchange programs with more than 30 universities and institutions from over 20 countries worldwide. The Confucius Institute in France, for instance, is a cooperative venture between Nanchang University and universities in France. It was the first Confucius Institute in Europe. Nanchang University has a long working relationship with the University of Abertay Dundee of the U.K. in jointly educating master's degree students. Every year, a group of Nanchang University graduates go to Abertay Dundee for their master's degrees in computer science. In the summer of 2012, Nanchang University and Queen Mary, University of London will be entering into a long term relationship, beginning with a group of six students who will travel to Nanchang to teach English and learn Chinese, with a plan to make this an annual event. There are similar programs with universities from Ireland, Germany, the U.S., New Zealand, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and other countries and regions.

In recognition of NCU's excellence in education and research, the Chinese Ministry of Education officially admitted Nanchang University into the national “211 Project” in 1997, signifying the inclusion of NCU into the elite 100 key universities in China. In 2004, the Chinese Ministry of Education signed an agreement with Jiangxi Provincial government affiliating Nanchang University with the Ministry of Education and Jiangxi Provincial government.