Located in Shanghai, the gathering place for the talented people and the heterogeneous cultures, East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST), initially named East China Institute of Chemical Technology, was founded in 1952. It was the first single-subject chemical institute in China through the joint consolidation of the chemical departments from Jiaotong University, Aurora University, Utopia University, Soochow University and Jiangnan University during a nation-wide restructuring of the country’s higher education resource in the early 1950’s. As one of the universities that were initially granted the permission to admit postgraduates in 1956, ECUST was promoted as a national key university under the direct administration of the Ministry of Education in 1960. In recognition of its growth, the National Ministry of Education approved the renaming of the University as the East China University of Science and Technology in 1993.
In June 1996, ECUST was selected as one of the top 100 universities in China for the national "211 Project". ECUST has been under the joint construction and administration of Shanghai Government and the State Ministry of Education since October 1997. In June 2000, the graduate school of ECUST was approved by the Ministry of Education of China and then became one of the first twenty-two universities under the Self-admission Reform Program in China. With its subsequent development and construction, the University gradually expanded into a multi-disciplinary national key university including science, engineering, agriculture, medicine, law, business, administration and humanities. Shen Weiguo is the present Party Secretary of the CCP in ECUST; Qian Xuhong the President, and Cheng Siwei the Honorable President is the vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the NPC and also a well known economist.
ECUST has three campuses now, located respectively in Xuhui District, Jinshan District and Fengxian District, which is in the region of Shanghai Touring Bay. As one of Shanghai’s Garden Units, the university has beautiful campuses, occupying a total area of more than1.639 million square meters with elegant environment and greenery scenery. Buildings on the campuses cover about 513 thousand square meters, including physical training establishments like gymnasium, swimming pool, standard track and field with a 400-meter plastic runway and so on. The university library possesses 2.5 million books, 18,000 periodicals, some 48 CD databases like CA & EI and the complete American patent in microfiche films.
ECUST is the head of information cooperation networks among Academics of Chemical Technology around China, the Workstation of Scientific Program Consultation and Innovation Investigation Center of the Education Ministry, the Center of Foreign Language Textbooks in Shanghai etc. Its Center of Analysis and Test and Gemstone Testing Center are certified national analysis and assessment centers.
The university has 14 Academic Schools at present, namely School of Chemical Engineering, School of Bioengineering, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, School of Pharmacy, School of Materials Science and Engineering, School of Information Science and Engineering, School of Mechanical and Power Engineering, School of Resource and Environmental Engineering, School of Science, School of Business, School of Social & Public Administration, School of Art, Design and Media, School of Foreign Languages and School of Law. In addition, it has Sino-German College of Technology, College of Distance Education, College of Continuing Education, College of International Education, Department of Excellence in Science and Engineering, School of Humanities and Department of Physical Education.
Academic fields of ECUST cover eleven branches and thirty-four subjects. The university now has 53 specialties for undergraduate studies, and it is entitled to confer master’s degrees in 121 programs, doctoral degrees in 44 programs, Engineering Master Degrees in 20 programs as well as the MBA program, MPA program, Normal Degree program for College Teachers and 5 post-doctoral centers. There are 7 national key subjects and 10 Shanghai key subjects among the ECUST academic units.
The total number of full time students has reached over 23,000. There are 15,662 undergraduates and 5,310 postgraduates, among them 953 are Ph.D. students. Furthermore, there are 22,700 students enrolled in College of Continuing Education and College of Distance Education for bachelor degrees. Among its over 3,798 staff members and workers, there are 5 academicians working full time and 18 academicians as part time professors, 3 chief scientists of national 973 Projects, 2 discipline experts of national 983 Projects, 7 Changjiang Distinguished Professors, 11 national Distinguished Scholars, 8 National Outstanding Young Scientists, 11 National Excellent Young Teachers, and over 1,000 professors and associate professors. More and more young scholars are recognized for their outstanding research; for examples, there are 4 members of Scientific Elites of Shanghai, 1 Outstanding Young Person of Shanghai, 16 finalists of the Outstanding Talents in the 21st Century Program, 3 finalists of the national of Million-Talents in the 21st Century Program.
With the enterprise-oriented objective of “to fully improve the students’ overall capability and to cultivate the students’ innovation ability”, ECUST’s continuous reform in educational philosophy, contents, methodology and the improvement of curricula system have enabled it to rank among the best universities in Shanghai for high-quality teaching. ECUST offers 6 National Classic Courses and 47 Shanghai Classic Courses; since 1997, 83 programs won the Teaching Award of Universities in Shanghai and that 11 programs won the National Teaching Award. Moreover, it has published 50 textbooks that are awarded National Excellent Textbooks and/or Provincial Excellent Textbooks in recent years.
Over the past years, students of ECUST have ranked the first among all universities for winning awards in national and international mathematics competitions; in 1997 and 2005, our students got the top special grade in the American College Students Mathematics Competitions. Our students were top ranked in many National and Shanghai competitions in Physics, Foreign Languages, Computer Programming, Electronic Design, Robot Inventing and Scientific Inventions. In particular, the university’s female table tennis team boasts many medals in the World Table Tennis Championship for College Students.
The university has 8 national academic bases, 14 provincial research bases, 53 academic institutes and a Science and Technology Zone. ECUST is among one of the first batch of 6 universities that were authorized to operate a national technology transference center. Researchers in ECUST have been conducting more than 800 research projects each year with funding support rising from 100 million RMB in 2001 and to 251 million in 2005. Among the research projects/programs completed in 1980-2005, 550 of them received awards and/or special recognitions, including 39 National Invention Awards and National Science Advancement Awards, 460 Provincial Science Advancement Awards, and 480 overseas 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. Many of our innovations have been commercialized to produce significant revenue and social benefits; GMT compound material, fine carbon, artificial bone cement, SO2 recycling, dry coal powder-gasification, and new self-control zymolysising kettle are just some examples. The university has been playing a leading role in the integration of teaching, research and production and, as a result, it won a Top 10 National Models Award in 2006.
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 five consecutive years since 1996.
Over 85, 000 students have graduated from ECUST since it was founded. Among them nine have been selected as members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering. Some have become leaders in all levels of governments. Many have become outstanding and well known experts in universities, research institutes and major companies. Meanwhile, there are outstanding alumni abroad, who have earned such honorary recognition as “The Most Influential in the Chinese Cosmos, 2006”. Former President Jiang Zemin inscribed an epigraph of “Talents come forth in great number” for ECUST on the thirtieth anniversary ceremony of Petroleum Processing Department in 1988.
ECUST has attached great importance to international cooperation and communication and has established long term collaborations with more than 60 universities, enterprises and research institutes in America, Japan, France, Germany, Britain, Canada, Korea and Australia. ECUST is moving ahead to build an internationally preeminent, brilliantly characteristic, multi-disciplinary and research-oriented first-class university.