Introduction to School Districts  

   East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST), originally named East China Institute of Chemical Technology, was founded in 1952. Its history dates back to 100 years to Nanyang Public School and Aurora University, its predecessor institutions. It was the first single-subject institute in China, consolidated by the chemistry departments of Jiaotong University, Aurora University, Utopia University, Soochow University and Jiangnan University, during a nation-wide restructuring of the country’s universities in the early 1950’s. It was among the first to be granted the permission to admit postgraduates in 1956. It was one of the 13 national key universities designated by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in 1960 and was renamed to its current name by the State Ministry of Education in 1993. In June 1996, ECUST was selected into the national key subjects of the "211 Project", a higher education reform project supported by the Chinese government for the further development of over 100 key universities in the 21st century. It has been under the joint construction and administration of Shanghai Municipal Government and the State Ministry of Education since October 1997. Its graduate school was accredited by the Ministry of Education of China in June 2000, and was permitted to construct the Project 985 Innovation Platform in 2008. It is among the first 22 universities to implement the Admission Reform in China. After over half a century’s efforts, the University has developed itself into a national key research university with distinct characteristics of each discipline and a coordinated development of multiple disciplines.

    Academic fields of ECUST cover eleven branches such as science, engineering, agriculture, medicine, law, management, philosophy, economics, arts, history and education, and thirty-eight subjects. The university now has 59 specialties for undergraduate studies, 23 subjects for master students, and 13 subjects for PhD students. It is entitled to confer master’s degrees in over 100 programs, doctoral degrees in 73 programs, and Master of Engineering' Degrees in 18 programs. It holds programs for Master Of Business Administration (MBA), Master of Public Administration (MPA), Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA), Juris Master (JM), and Master of Social Work (MSW). Apart from these, it also runs a Normal Degree program for College Teachers and 9 post-doctoral centers. Moreover, there are 7 second-level national key subjects, 1 national key subject (under construction) and 10 Shanghai key subjects.

    The university has 8 national academic bases, 18 provincial and ministerial research bases, and 2 scientific research bases based on international cooperation, 50 academic research centers, and one National Science and Technology Zone. ECUST is among one of the first six universities that were authorized as the national technology transference centers. In recent years, 1300 full-time and part-time researchers have been conducting more than 1000 research programs each year with their research fund rising from 100 million RMB in 2001 to 200 million in 2004, 306 million in 2007, 342 million in 2008，and more than 400 million in 2009. During the National Tenth Five-Year, its research fund of Project 863 ranked the 9th among all the universities in China. Its research projects/programs have received numerous awards and/or special recognitions, among which are 49 National Invention Awards and National Science Advancement Awards, and over 1000 national and international patents. New technologies were developed for the gasification of water, coal and plasma, ethanol from biomass, resource recovery by smog desulphurization, advanced evaporation of water, chlorine and stone, invention platform of microorganism albumen in large scale etc. A lot of them have been industrialized and made great lucrative and social profits, including GMT compound material, fine carbon, artificial bone cement, SO2 recycling, dry coal powder-gasification, and new self-control zymolysising kettle.

    The university has been striving to enhance the Party Construction and Spiritual Civilization Construction and to advance the cultivation of students’ overall capability along with the successful Material Civilization Construction. ECUST took the lead in “Double Courses” reforming and won the first class award of Shanghai and National Excellent Teaching Achievements, which in turn resulted in, for five consecutive years, the first class award and the excellent organization award in the competition of Deng Xiaoping’s theory studies of Shanghai. Great achievements have been made in the construction of campus environment, innovation of educational system and the improvement of integrated educational advantages. Consequently, a lot of Shanghai or National Excellent Students, Outstanding Communities and Civilized Dormitories come to the fore every year. Honors have come in showers to the university, including the Excellent Organizing Award of Shanghai in the National College Student Art Festival, the Excellent Organizing Award of National Social Activity for College Students, the Model of Collective Working Unit in Shanghai, the Outstanding Unit of Arts Education in Shanghai, Model Unit for Supporting the Military and their Families, the Outstanding Unit of Social Security in Shanghai, the National Outstanding Unit of People’s Physical Education, the Outstanding Unit of Democratic Administration, the Civilized Unit of Shanghai for seven consecutive years since 1996.