School of Public Administration (SPA) of South China University of Technology (SCUT) was established in April 2009, based on reshuffle of former School of Politics & Public Administration (SPPA). The school consists of 3 teaching sections (Department of Administrative Management, Department of Land Resources Management and MPA Education Center), 2 research organs (Institute of Public Administration & Public Policy, Institute of Government Decision & Performance Appraisal).

SPA-SCUT has been authorized to confer Master’s degrees of Public Administration, with options open to 1 undergraduate program (Administrative Management); 5 graduate programs (Administrative Management, Land Resources Management, Educational Economics & Management, Higher Education and Education Technology); 1 professional master program (MPA), and various continuing education and training programs.

With “moral quality-first, foundation-strengthened, capability-intensified, well-adaptive” as the core of its education idea, SPA-SCUT attaches great importance to promote students’ comprehensive capabilities and qualities. Annually, the school recruits 890 students at all levels, with 457 undergraduate students, 126 full-time graduate students, 58 in-service graduate students and 249 MPA students respectively. Nowadays, graduates at all levels from the school are playing important roles in both local and central government, while others are constructively engaged in the activities of enterprises and non-profit organizations.

Currently, SPA-SCUT has 36 faculty members, among which the full-time teaching staff amount to 29, including 5 professors and 8 associate professors; 66% of them have received Doctoral degree, and 9 of them are taking part-time programs for the Doctoral degree. As for the academic background, the faculty members respectively concentrate on Management Science, Political Science, Economics, Philosophy, Law and Computer Science etc.; one of the professors was appointed as the Outstanding Youth Professor of 100 Talents Program of SCUT; in addition, a number of national and international celebrated scholars and high officials of government are invited to be guest professors and adjunct professors of the school. All in all, the inter-disciplinary background and integrated talent resources actually constitute the great benefit for the development of school and related disciplines.

The main research fields of SPA-SCUT involve regional development and public policy, land resources planning and management; government performance appraisal, HR development & management in public sectors, E-government and decision-making support system etc. Since 2007, SPA-SCUT has successfully applied for several National Social Science Foundation, National Natural Science Foundation; and plenty of provincial foundation projects, ministry fund projects, horizontal tasks and commission projects; hosting several academic activities of certain influence. A series of research fruits won the Excellence Award for Achievements of Humanities & Social Science at national and provincial levels, and some of them were published on leading journals such as Social Science in China, imposing great academic and social values on the practice. What’s more, SPA-SCUT also pays much attention to domestic and international academic exchange & cooperation, maintaining close links with several distinguished institutions home and abroad.

SPA-SCUT locates at No. 5 Building in North Campus of SCUT, a classical and refined comprehensive building with integrated equipments and OA system, including an advanced E-government lab and school library, lecture hall, teaching classes and staff rooms. All of those software and hardware facilities and resources have created comfort environment and solid foundation for the further development of our school.

Up to now, SPA-SCUT has developed into an important teaching, researching, training and consulting service center of public administration and public policy in south china. For achieving far-reaching progress, SPA-SCUT will unceasingly strengthen exchange and cooperation with academic communities and governmental institutions in and outside China, so as to jointly propel the sustainable development of public administration.