Southeast University (SEU), located in Nanjing, the ancient capital city of six dynasties, is a prestigious institution of higher learning renowned both at home and abroad. As one of the national key universities directly subordinate to the Ministry of Education of China and jointly established with Jiangsu Province, it is also listed as one of the universities involved in National “985 Project” “211 Project”. In 2017, SEU was ranked on the list of constructing “Class A first-rate world universities”.  

SEU, as one of the time-honored institutions of higher learning in China with profound cultural heritage, its origin can be traced back to 1902 when it was founded as Sanjiang Normal College, then known as Liangjiang Normal College, Nanjing Higher Normal School, State Southeast University and State Central University, etc.. In 1952, national colleges and universities greatly adjusted their departments and disciplines by moving out the literature and science disciplines. Based on the College of Engineering of the original State Central University, relevant disciplines of Fudan University, Chiao Tung University, Zhejiang University and University of Nanking etc. were incorporated in succession to establish Nanjing Institute of Technology on the original site of State Central University. In May 1988, the university was renamed to Southeast University. In April 2000, a new Southeast University was established in combination with Nanjing Railway Medical College, Nanjing College of Communications and Nanjing Geological School. In the past 120-year school management, SEU, in the spirit of patriotism and concerning people all over the world, has been always making unyielding efforts in pursuit of prominence to achieve scientific progress and national rejuvenation. With time goes by, the school has gradually shaped its outstanding school spirit of “rigor, truthfulness, unity and diligence”, the school management philosophy of “being renowned for science and serving the country with talents”, and the school motto of “striving for perfection”.

Currently, SEU has set up 34 departments with 83 bachelor’s degree programs, 34 first-leveldisciplines authorized to confer PhD Degree and 48 first-level disciplines authorized to confer Master’s Degree. Among the full-time 36,277 students, there are 16,200 undergraduate students and 20,077 graduate students including 1,966 overseas students, among which, 1,523 study for different academic degrees. Right now, SEU has three campuses, respectively, Sipailou Campus, Jiulonghu Campus and Dingjiaqiao Campus, covering an area of 5888mu (1mu = 666.7 m²) in total, among which, Jiulonghu Campus covers an area of 3,752.35mu with the total building area of 789,700m². The school’s library covers an area of 66,900m², compromising 4.4 million volume of books of all sorts. In addition, the school has also set up Wuxi Branch and Suzhou Campus.  

SEU is a comprehensive research-oriented university featuring engineering discipline while covering many other disciplines including philosophy, economics, law, education, literature, science, engineering, medicine, management and art, etc.. Among others, 11 disciplines have been listed as national “double first-class” construction disciplines and 5 disciplines obtain A+ in the fourth round of disciplinary assessment, both ranked at No. 8 at the national level; 12 disciplines are ranked among top 1% of ESI internationally, in which, the engineering discipline is listed at No. 20 with computer science at No. 16. Both disciplines are ranked among top 1‰ of ESI internationally. Meanwhile, the school highlights 3 national key laboratories, 4 national engineering research centers, 2 national engineering technology research centers, 1 national professional laboratory, 11 key laboratories of the Ministry of Education, 7 engineering research centers of the Ministry of Education, 33 postdoctoral research centers, 1 national-level think tank of liberal arts and 2 key high-end think tanks of Jiangsu Province.

SEU features high-level faculty comprising 2,991 full-time teachers, including 2,569 teachers with PhD degree, 2,021 teachers with senior andsub-senior titles, 1,071 doctoral student supervisors and 2,166 graduate student supervisors. In addition, there’re also 12 academicians of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering, 1 academician of the Academy of Europe, 13 members of the 7th Disciplinary Appraisal Panels of the State Council Academic Committee, 37 experts involved in the national “Ten Thousands Talents Program”, 6 winners of the national awards for renowned teachers, 5 renowned teachers involved in the “Ten Thousands Talents Program”, 50 persons granted with funds from the National Outstanding Youth Science Foundation, 25 national-level candidates for “Millions of Talents Program” initiated by the Ministry of Personnel and 2 persons titled as “National Top 10 Youth Jurisconsults”. SEU is right now intensifying its strategy of building a powerful school by talents and endeavoring to promote the “high-end faculty multiplication plan” so as to accelerate its progress of constructing a top-ranking faculty team.  

SEU features high reputation for its education. Considering the talent cultivation as its fundamental assignment, the school has cultivated 330,000 talents of all sorts for the country and the society. Meanwhile, a batch of meritorious elites surge out. Over 200 academicians of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering once worked or studied at SEU. Up to now, the school is one of the first-batch national demonstration institutions of higher learning to implement the innovative and entrepreneurial education reform, and also one of the first-batch comprehensive pilot institutions of higher learning to implement the “cultivation mode with full forces and covering full processes in an all-round way”. Up to now, a total of 20 majors have been enrolled as the national first-class undergraduate major construction points, 5 majors enrolled as nationalcomprehensive reform pilot projects, 23 majors enrolled as national characteristic specialties, 36 first-batch national quality resource sharing courses, 11 national quality online courses, 5 national virtual simulation experiment teaching projects, 8 national experiment teaching demonstration centers and construction points, and 3 national virtual simulation experiment teaching centers. In 2018, 50 candidates were selected as members of the newly-elected National Teaching Steering Committee, including 3 candidates for chairman and 10 candidates for vice chairman. Besides, the school has established 12 national innovation experiment areas for implementing talent cultivation mode and 12 national engineering practice and education centers. 11 teams have been elected as national teaching innovation teams. Thanks to these efforts, SEU has won the first prize for national teaching achievement for successive four times (once every four years), in which, it was granted 9 national teaching achievement awards in 2018, ranked third among institutions of higher learning in China. In the new era, the school persists in cultivating talents with lofty morality, inheriting fine traditions, keeping pace with the time, making constant breakthrough and reshaping the talent-cultivation objectives so as to cultivate leading talents highlighting patriotism, international view and the ambition of leading the future and thus benefiting human beings.

SEU is an important base for scientific research in China. The school persists in the combination of production, study and research. In 2019, the school has received the research funding of RMB 2.83 billion, applied for 3,001 invention patents with 1,783 approved, and 105 PCT patents. Among others, the quantity of invention patents as approved was ranked third in China. In addition, papers enrolled by SCI and EI were listed in the front rank among national colleges and universities. From 2011 to 2019, the school took the lead in obtaining 31 national science and technology awards, including 1 first prize for national technology invention in 2011 and 1 first prize for national science and technology progress in 2014. In recent years, the school has participated in several major projects, such as “Mission Moon”, “Three Gorges Project”, “500-meter Radio Telescope”, Beijing Sub-center, Hongkong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, High-speed Rail Technology, Antarctic Scientific Investigation, South China Sea Island and Wireless Charging, etc.. In the latest five years, the school took the lead in obtaining 20 awards for outstanding achievements in university humanities and social sciences as granted by the Ministry of Education. At present, SEU is endeavoring to create a high-level scientific and technological innovation pattern to better serve the  major development strategies in China.

SEU, as one of the most active universities in China for international exchanges and cooperation, has maintained close cooperation and exchanges with multiple world-class universities and high-level research institutions such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of California at Berkeley, University of Maryland, University of British Columbia, University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, University of Leeds, ETHZ, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Technical University of Munich, Catholic University of Leuven, Trinity College Dublin, Australia Monash University and Tokyo Institute of Technology,etc.. In particular, in 2017, SEU initiated the establishment of the “Sino-British University Engineering Education and Research Consortium”, which is the first university consortium of its kind between China and UK with engineering education and research as the highlight. Then 9 prestigious British universities including Queen's University Belfast, University of Birmingham, University of Cambridge, Cardiff University, University of Leeds, University of Liverpool, University College London, University of Nottingham and Warwick University joined the Consortium. The school also cooperated with Australia Monash University in establishing Southeast University-Monash University Suzhou Joint Graduate School, which is the first Sino-foreign joint graduate school of its kind approved by the Ministry of Education. Besides, the school cooperated with Université de Rennes 1 to establish Southeast University-Rennes 1 Graduate School. As a whole, Southeast University is accelerating its formation of a comprehensive and high-level international exchange and cooperation pattern covering focused, multi-level and wide fields at the direction of “internationally high-end positioning, substantial cooperation and leading development”.

When marching into the new century, SEU will persist in the thought of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era led by President Xi Jinping as the guidance, adhere to and practice the school motto of “striving for perfection”, establish the “first-class” awareness, center on first-rate objectives, implement top-ranking standards, stick to cutting-edge and service strategies, consider staff-students orientation and talents in priority to promote the integration of multi-disciplines, combination of science, engineering, literal art and medicine, combination of production, study and research as well as international alliance, deepened comprehensive reform in an all-round way, endeavor to realize major breakthroughs in terms of talent cultivation, scientific research, staff team construction and international cooperation, etc.. It is expected to develop SEU to be a world-ranking university with vivid Chinese characteristics and its own distinctive features to the satisfaction of people. In this sense, it can make outstanding contributions to realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and promoting the progress and advancement of human civilization (Updated in March 2020).