Academic ranks in China

Academic ranks in China are the titles, relative importance and power of professors, researchers, and administrative personnel held in academia.

Overview
Most universities in the People's Republic of China adopt a four-level academic rank system (Senior rank, Vice-Senior rank, Medium rank, and Junior rank), i.e. Professor, Associate professor, Lecturer, and Assistant lecturer. More recently, some top universities (e.g. Tsinghua University, Peking University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University) also added the American-style title of assistant professor, typically granted to tenure-track positions, with the expectation that they will be promoted to Associate professor (tenured or untenured) and then full professor (tenured) within the academic tenure system.

Most PhD graduates will initially be appointed at the lecturer level and receive the qualification to be promoted to associate professorship after several years of teaching. However, people holding a doctorate from Western universities and with some working experience overseas will occasionally be appointed at a higher level, in exceptional cases at the full professor level directly. Mostly, each individuate institute has only one principal rank (e.g. dean of a college, president of a university) and multiple deputy ranks.

Professor series Engineer series Researcher series
 * Four-level academic rank in different series (Senior rank, Vice-Senior rank, Medium rank, and Junior rank)
 * Professor (Senior rank)
 * Associate Professor (Vice-Senior rank)
 * Lecturer (Medium rank) or Assistant Professor (American-style title)
 * Assistant Lecturer, or Associate Lecturer (Junior rank)
 * Professor-level senior engineer (Senior rank)
 * Senior engineer (Vice-Senior rank)
 * Engineer (Medium rank)
 * Assistant Engineer (Junior rank)
 * Researcher (Senior rank)
 * Associate researcher (Vice-Senior rank)
 * Assistant researcher (Medium rank)
 * Intern researcher (Junior rank)


 * Academic trainee
 * Postdoctoral research fellow and research fellow/researcher
 * Research assistant and teaching assistant
 * Doctoral student
 * Master student
 * Undergraduate student


 * Honorary titles
 * Academician, a person who was nominated as a member of Chinese Academy of Engineering or/and Chinese Academy of Sciences
 * Emeritus Professor
 * Honorary Professor, usually awarded to academics with important social contributions
 * Distinguished Professor, usually awarded to academics with a recognized achievement in research
 * Guest professor, or commonly visiting professor, usually awarded to distinguished visiting scholars


 * Administrative ranks


 * Secretary of the CPC Committee, similar to Chancellor, who usually does not take administrative responsibilities
 * Associate Secretary of the CPC Committee, similar to Vice-Chancellor; the 1st order Associate Secretary is usually appointed President, with other Associate Secretaries being the Vice-President
 * President, taking the major decision for academic and administrative affairs, assisted by Vice-Presidents
 * Vice-president, usually taking the responsibility of a certain area, e.g. academic, administrative, facilities, finance, etc.
 * Dean
 * Deputy dean or associate dean of schools and faculties
 * Director of research centre and director of academic department