Sichuan University

Sichuan University is an institution that has a series of mergers involving three national universities: the former Sichuan University, the former Chengdu University of Science and Technology, and the former West China University of Medical Sciences. The history of Sichuan University dates back to as early as 1896 when Lu Chuanlin, Governor of Sichuan, founded Sichuan Chinese and Western School on the orders of Emperor Guangxu. It is the earliest higher education institute in southwest China.

Sichuan University has a comprehensive range of disciplines covering 12 categories: humanities, science, engineering, medicine, economy, management, law, history, philosophy, agriculture, education and art. It consists of 34 colleges. A total of 45 disciplines have been authorized by the state to grant doctoral degrees. Altogether, the university offers 354 doctoral programs, 438 master programs, 32 professional master's programs, 138 undergraduate programs, and 37 post-doctoral research stations. It also has 46 national key disciplines and 4 national key cultivated disciplines.

Sichuan University has exhibited great strength in research and made remarkable achievements over the years. It has 13 key national laboratories and engineering centers, 4 state-level international scientific and technological cooperation bases, 11 key laboratories and 6 engineering research centers under the supervision of Ministry of Education, and 3 key laboratories under the supervision of Ministry of Health. It also has 9 national centers for talent training, research and teaching, 8 National Experimental Teaching Demonstration Centers, 19 National Engineering Practice Education Centers, 3 National Experimental Teaching Center Of Virtual Simulation, 1 National Teacher Teaching Development Demonstration Center, 1 National Base of Culture-Oriented Quality Education for College Students, 9 National Off-campus Practice Education Bases for College Students, 4 key National Research Bases for Philosophy and Social Sciences, 3 National Drug Clinical Trial Institutes. Since 2005, the university has won 41 awards in three major national award categories for science and technology. In 2016, the research funding of the university increased to 1.86 billion RMB, the number of papers published ranked the 5th and the number of SCI papers ranked the 6th in China. In the field of humanities and social sciences, experts of the university compiled, edited and published several extensive collections and anthologies, including a Chinese Dictionary, The Complete Works of Song Dynasty, A History of Chinese Taoism, and Ru Zang(Collected Works of Confucianism).

Sichuan University takes pride in its large pool of prominent scholars and professors. By the end of 2016, there were 5,324 full-time teachers. Among them, there were 1,767 professors, 14 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering, 6 Outstanding Professors, 80 experts recruited through the thousand Talents Plan and 123 experts recruited from the thousand Talents Plan of Sichuan Province.

The university libraries have a collection of over 6.65 million books and the Humanities Museum houses over 85,000 objects, the Natural Museum, over 870,000 animal and plant specimens, and the Archives and History Exhibition Center, over 280,000 volumes of historical archives (including over 9000 valuable historical archives).