Hunan Normal University (), founded in 1938, is a

public university A public university or public college is a university or college that is in state ownership, owned by the state or receives significant government spending, public funds through a national or subnational government, as opposed to a private unive ...

Changsha Changsha (; ; ; Changshanese pronunciation: (), Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is the capital and the largest city of Hunan Province of China. Changsha is the 17th most populous city in China with a population of over 10 million, and th ...

Hunan Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi ...

Province. The university is the

211 Project Project 211 () was an abolished project of developing comprehensive universities and colleges initiated in 1995 by the Ministry of Education of China, with the intent of raising the research standards of comprehensive universities and cultiva ...

university, one of the country's 100

national key universities National Key Universities () previously referred to universities recognized as prestigious and which received a high level of support from the central government of the People's Republic of China. The term is no longer in official use by 1990s. The ...

in the 21st century that enjoy priority in obtaining national funds. It is also a Chinese state

Double First Class University Plan The World First Class University and First Class Academic Discipline Construction (), together known as Double First Class (), is a tertiary education development initiative designed by the People's Republic of China central government in 2015 ...

university, a major government initiative to comprehensively develop a group of elite universities into "world-first-class universities" by 2050. It is particularly reputable for its concentration on teachers education and training, foreign language studies, Chinese literature and history.

History

National Normal College

Hunan Normal University was built on the first independent teachers' college in China, named " National Normal College," established in 1938. Its historic origin can be traced back to

Yuelu Academy The Yuelu Academy (also as known as the ''Yuelu Academy of Classical Learning'', ) is on the east side of Yuelu Mountain in Changsha, Hunan province, on the west bank of the Xiang River. As one of the four most prestigious academies over the las ...

in Northern Song Dynasty, one of the four most prestigious academies over the last 1000 years in China. It was integrated into

Hunan University Hunan University (HNU; ; pinyin: Húnán Dàxué''),'' colloquially abbreviated as HúDà (湖大), is a national key public research university located in Changsha, Hunan, and a Double First Class University as well as a member of Projec ...

in 1949.

Structure and departments

Consisting of five campuses, the university covers a total area of 1.78 km², with one million square meters of floor space. Most of the campuses are located near the Yuelu Mountain. The university is divided into 23

colleges A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a University system, constituent part of one. A college may be a academic degree, degree-awarding Tertiary education, tertiary educational institution, a part of a coll ...

, 3 teaching departments, 51

research Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness t ...

institutions. The university offers 74

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-le ...

programs, 147 master programs, and 55 Ph.D. programs. There are 10 postdoctoral scientific research stations, 13 State Training and Research Bases or Centers and 7 key laboratories, jointly constructed by the

Ministry of Education An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...

and

Hunan Province Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiang ...

, on the campus. Since its founding, the university has educated nearly 300,000 students, including about 4,000 international students and students from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Currently, over 24,000 undergraduates, 8,000 graduates and 300 international students are studying on campus. There are 1091

professors Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

and

associate professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. Overview In the '' North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is ...

s at the university; among them are one academician of the

Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Repub ...

and one academician of the

Chinese Academy of Engineering The Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE, ) is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for engineering. It was established in 1994 and is an institution of the State Council of China. The CAE and the Chinese Academy of Sciences ...

. The university has invited about 600 scholars and experts to give lectures or conduct scientific research on campus from more than 20 countries since 2,000, and has established relations with over 80 foreign institutions of higher learning for academic exchanges.

Rankings and reputation

In 2021, Hunan Normal University ranked 601-700th globally by the

Academic Ranking of World Universities The ''Academic Ranking of World Universities'' (''ARWU''), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, is one of the annual publications of world university rankings. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiao Tong Universi ...

(ARWU), and ranked 685th by ''

SCImago Institutions Rankings The SCImago Institutions Rankings (SIR) since 2009 has published its international ranking of worldwide research institutions, the SIR World Report. The SIR World Report is the work of the SCImago Research Group,research universities around the world. The 2022

CWTS Leiden Ranking The CWTS Leiden Ranking is an annual global university ranking based exclusively on bibliometric indicators. The rankings are compiled by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies ( Dutch: ''Centrum voor Wetenschap en Technologische Studies ...

ranked Hunan Normal University 656th in the world based on their publications for the period 2017–2020. The ''

Nature Index The Nature Index is a database that tracks institutions and countries and their scientific output since its introduction in November, 2014. Each year, Nature Index ranks the leading institutions (which can be companies, universities, government agen ...

2021 Annual Tables'' by

Nature Research Nature Portfolio (formerly known as Nature Publishing Group and Nature Research) is a division of the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature that publishes academic journals, magazines, online databases, and services in scie ...

ranked the university among the top 500 leading research institutions globally for the high quality of research publications in natural science.

Library

The

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...

of the university has a collection of 3.4 million volumes, including 200,000 volumes of traditional thread binding books, and subscribes 4,700 kinds of Chinese and foreign

periodicals A periodical literature (also called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) is a published work that appears in a new edition on a regular schedule. The most familiar example is a newspaper, but a magazine or a journal are also example ...

. There are 12 academic periodicals published and distributed by the university. The university has its own

publishing house Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

called Hunan Normal University Press.

References

External links

Official web siteOfficial website in English
{{authority control Teachers colleges in China Universities and colleges in Changsha 1938 establishments in Asia Universities and colleges in Hunan Yuelu District