Guangzhou University

Guangzhou University (GZHU; ) is a public university in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, China.

The university is made up of two campuses. The major campus is located in Guangzhou Higher Education Mega Center (HEMC, geographically called Xiaoguwei Island), covering a total area of 131.7 hectares, with a building space of 596,000 square meters. The other campus is located in downtown (GuiHuaGang) of Guangzhou, covering 20 hectares.

The university is dually affiliated to Guangzhou Municipal Government and Guangdong Provincial Government. The funding for the university is subject to Guangzhou Municipal Government.

History
Guangzhou University was reestablished in July 2000 by the Chinese Ministry of Education. It was a merger of five tertiary institutions previously known as Guangzhou Normal University (广州师范学院), South China Institute of Construction (华南建设学院), Guangzhou University (广州大学), Guangzhou Junior Teachers' College (广州高等专科学校), and Guangzhou Institute of Education (广州教育学院).

The university comprises 27 schools. It offers 76 undergraduate programs with coverage of ten disciplinary fields, including philosophy, history, literature, law, pedagogy, art, science, engineering, management and economics. Currently, the university is authorized to run 3 PhD programs with 25 grade-2 subjects, 26 graduate programs with 95 grade-2 subjects. In addition, the university offers 9 professional graduate programs in 36 fields, including pedagogy, engineering, physical education, art and international Chinese language teaching.

The university has a teaching and research staff of 2094, including two academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and one academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, 290 full-time professors and 604 full-time associate professors. The number of the full-time graduates and undergraduates is over 34,000.

The university participates in national and provincial research programs such as national “973” and “863” projects. It has established more than 30 research institutes or centers specializing in a wide range of subjects, including Interdisciplinary Research Center, Earthquake Engineering Research Test Center, Human Right Research Center, Research Institute for Computer Science & Software etc.

Up to 2011, the university has established the partnership with more than 100 overseas institutions. The university offers Chinese language instructions and degree programs for students from abroad as well as from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

The construction of the Guangzhou Higher Education Mega Center on Xiaoguwei Island (小谷围) is in progress.

Guangzhou University and The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology jointly established The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) which officially opened in 2022.

Campus
There are now eighty student associations with more than 12,000 members at GZHU. These associations cover a range of subjects including humanities, technology, public service, arts, and P.E. etc. Each year, there is a cultural month reserved for activities of the associations in which student associations play an important role in moral education, science enlightenment, career guidance, and volunteer service.

Rankings and reputation
The University Ranking on Academic Performance publications, authored by scholars from the Middle East Technical University in Turkey and co-contributed by European scholars from France, Netherlands and the United Kingdom ranked Guangzhou University at #153 out of the 183 nationally China and #1516 in ranking globally out of all the places of higher institutions in that category.

Nature Index
Nature Index tracks the affiliations of high-quality scientific articles and presents research outputs by institution and country on monthly basis.

Courses
While the undergraduate programs remain the dominant focus of its operation, GZHU also runs postgraduate programs. The university run 42 postgraduate programs and 62 undergraduate programs in eight fields of study including Literature, Science, Engineering, Economics, Management, Law, Education and History.

Staff and students
GZHU has a staff of 2,588 including one academic scholar from the Chinese Academy of Science, one academic scholar from the China Institute of Engineering, four academic scholars employed on a part-time basis, 20 supervisors of doctoral students, 130 full-time professors, 567 associate professors; of whom all 100 are Ph.D holders, 32 who have been awarded the state Council Special Allowances, 14 provincial and municipal level experts. The University's current full-time postgraduates, undergraduates and diploma students number 17,000. The University enrolls students mainly from Guangdong Province and Guangzhou, but also admits students from 11 other provinces, Hong Kong, Macao and also from overseas.

Research centres and other partnerships
The University has 57 research institutes and centers specializing in wide range of fields including the Institute of Educational Software, the Earthquake Engineering Research and TestCenter, the Institute of Educational Sciences, and the Institute of Advanced Manufacturing Technology.

GZHU has also established a number of cooperative educational establishments including the College of Textile and Garment, the College of Urban Construction Engineering, the College of Technology and Trade, Sontian College, Software Engineering Institute of Guangzhou, the School of Municipal Works and Construction. GZHU has established partnerships in a wide range of disciplines with universities and academic institutions of the United States, Australia, France, Russia, Italy, South Korea, Japan, Sweden, and Chinese-speaking regions including Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.