Southeast University (SEU) is one of the national key universities administered directly under the Central Government and the Ministry of Education of China. It is also one of the universities of Project 211 and Program 985 that is financed by the Central Government to build as a world-class university. SEU is on the list of level A universities of "first-rate universities."
Southeast University is one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in China. It has the accolades of "a sacred place of learning" and "the top university in the southeast part of China."Its origin can be traced back to 1902 when it was founded as Sanjiang Normal College. In 1921, on renowned educator Mr. Guo Bingwen, National Southeast University was founded based on Nanjing Higher Normal School. It became one of the two national comprehensive universities worldwide. Mr. Guo Bingwen took up the post of the first president of the university. He invited dozens of prominent scholars and experts to the university. Hence it is acknowledged that "Peking University is renowned for its literature, history and philosophy disciplines, and Southeast University is famous for its science disciplines." In 1928, the university changed its name to National Central University. It had seven schools, including science, engineering, medicine, agriculture, literature, law, and education. The number and scale of disciplines were on the first level around the country. In May 1988, the university was renamed Southeast University. The anniversary is on June 6. In April 2000, Nanjing Railway Medical College, Nanjing College of Communications, and Nanjing Geological School were incorporated into the university, and the new Southeast University was established.
Southeast University has have been continually exploring methods in school management and talent nurturing. It encourages the philosophy of Liangjiang Normal School's "experience hardness, achieves success," the spirit of Nanjing Higher Normal School's "nation, democracy, science," the school motto of National Southeast University's "striving for perfection," the academic atmosphere of National Central University's "sincerity with aspiration," and the school ethos of Nanjing Institute of Technology's "rigor, truthfulness, unity, and diligence." Over a hundred years, SEU has been aiming at developing science and revitalizing the Chinese nation. Its spirit of self-improving and pursuing excellence stimulates everyone in SEU to make brilliant achievements.
Southeast University is one of the internationally influential universities in China. Since the reform and opening-up, Southeast University has been taking an active part in international communication. Up to now, it has signed agreements for friendly cooperation with more than 153 universities and research institutes, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of California, Irvine, University of Cambridge, University of Birmingham, University of Nottingham, Queen's University Belfast, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Technical University of Munich, The University of Melbourne, Monash University, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, etc. Southeast University launched "UK-China University Consortium on Engineering Education and Research," which is the first university consortium that features engineering education and research jointly built by UK and China. Universities from the UK include Queen's University Belfast, University of Birmingham, Cardiff University, University College London, University of Nottingham, and The University of Warwick. One thousand nine hundred forty-seven international students are studying in SEU, including 1492 degree students, 76.6% of the total number of international students, and 713 international postgraduate students, which is 47.8% of the number of degree students. The numbers of international degree students and postgraduate students are the largest in Jiangsu province. The university has also established 3 Confucius Institutes in America and The Republic of Belarus.
SEU has made remarkable achievements in serving local economic construction. According to the statistical result made by Jiangsu province concerning the college research effort of science and technology serving for local development, SEU ranks the first in most of the indicators among the following seven, namely, science projects and teams, science funding, science base, four kinds of technical funding, the transformation of scientific and technological achievements and project identification, patent condition and scientific awards. SEU Science Park aims to provide the best service and support for incubating sci-tech enterprises and high-tech products and cultivating innovators and pioneers.
