Zhejiang University

History

1897–1914: college-preparatory school

Established in 1897 by Hangzhou's mayor, Lin Qi, Qiushi Academy was the major predecessor to the university. The educational reforms of 1902 and 1904 in China led to the academy being renamed Chekiang University in 1902, and subsequently Chekiang Higher Institute in 1903. Elmer L. Mattox of Hangchow Presbyterian College was appointed as the head teacher of the college, responsible for supervising and organising teaching. The Institute was the first provincial educational institution to send students to study abroad.

However, the proposed reforms under the new republican government following the 1911 revolution sparked controversy, causing the Institutes to cease student recruitment in 1912 and ultimately close in 1914.

In 1947, Chang Ch'i-yun, a professor at NCKU, began attributing the university's origin to the Qiushi Academy, which was later acknowledge in the yearbook of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China.

1928–1949: national university

After the closure of Cheking Higher Institute, the attempts to restore the institute was unsuccessful due to conflicts between warlords. After the Northern Expedition in July 1927, the Kuomintang (KMT) took control of Hangzhou and established the National Third Chungshan University, by merging Chekiang Industrial College and Chekiang Agricultural College on the original site of Qiushi Academy. On April 1, 1928, the institution was renamed Chekiang University, and later that year it was renamed National Chekiang University (NCKU), with Jiang Menglin, an alumnus and teacher of Qiushi, as its first president.

In 1929, Jiang was succeeded by Shao Peizi, also an alumnus and teacher of Qiushi. Shao refused to join KMT, which led to a tense relationship between the university and the government, and the government withdrew funding in 1932, leading to Shao's resignation. Cheng Tien-fong, a member of the KMT, was then appointed by the Nationalist government as the new president. Under his leadership, with the personal intervention of Chiang Kai-shek, the university began to receive direct funding from the central government.

In March 1933, Kuo Zing-Yang, another KMT member, became president. But as the Sino-Japanese conflict intensified and the Nationalist government's response to the invasion was perceived as lenient, its popularity waned. This discontent culminated in the December 9 Movement of 1935, when students ousted Kuo from office, accusing him of collaborating with the police to arrest student demonstrators.Chu Kochen, a scholar with no previous political appointments, was recommended to Chiang Kai-shek by Chen Bulei for the presidency of NCKU in April 1936. Kochen's inauguration was presided over by Jiang Menglin. Backed by Chen Bulei's strong financial backing and authority to make political appointments within the university, Chu was able to attract leading members of the Science Society of China and the Critical Review Group. In the second half of 1937, with the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the advance of the Japanese army, the university was forced to move from Hangzhou, first to Yishan, then to Zunyi, and finally to Meitan in Guizhou Province in southwest China. During this period, the students of NCKU took on the responsibility of safeguarding Zhejiang's historical collections, including the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries housed in the Wenlan Pavilion, to prevent their capture by Japanese forces.

In March 1945, Fei Gong, an NCKU professor and critic of the Nationalist government, disappeared in Chongqing in what was later proved to be a government assassination. In September, with the surrender of Japan, a group of NCKU professors led by Luo Zongluo were ordered by the government to take over the Japanese Imperial University in Taiwan. In October, the students and faculty who had retreated to Longquan began to return to Hangzhou, while those who had retreated to Guizhou returned in May 1946 with the help of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. The university set up its first medical school on the instructions of the Ministry of Education.

1949–1976: Mao Zedong era

In August 1948, Ma Yinchu was appointed as the university president, who promoted communist education and organisations within the university. In 1950, the new Ministry of Education instructed all universities to remove "National" from their names. Hence the university's name was changed to its present name in Chinese, or Zhejiang University (ZJU). The communist education among faculty evolved into the Thought Reform and Three-anti and Five-anti Campaigns after Ma was appointed the president of Peking University in 1949. ZJU scholars such as Su Buqing, Tan Jiazhen, Wang Guosong became targets of political prosecution.

In the early 1950s, the university underwent a series of re-organisation, which aimed to establish a Soviet-styled education system, to eventually became an engineering-focused university., which only had the departments of electrical engineering, chemical engineering, civil engineering and mechanical engineering. The engineering school of Hangchow University merged into ZJU. The university's College of Agriculture became an independent university, named Zhejiang Agricultural University. The university's medical school merged into Zhejiang Provincial Medical College to become Zhejiang Medical College. The departments of Chinese Literature, Foreign Literature and Education was merged into Zhejiang Teachers College and relocated to the campus of Hangchow University. The faculty of College of Sciences were sent to Chinese Academy of Sciences.

In 1954, the university moved from Daxue Road to Yuquan. Liu Dan, the university's Party Secretary, restored sciences research and education as part of the university's engineering offerings. In 1963, ZJU was selected as one of the National Key Universities.In 1966, the Cultural Revolution broke out and the university ceased to function. Liu Dan was removed from office after being attacked by the Zhejiang Daily and the People's Daily. There was an emergence of radical groups in favour of Cultural Revolution. In August, the ZJU students confronted with younger red guards, who were mostly high school students, to protect Lingyin Temple from their attempts to destroy Four Olds. In 1967, at a meeting with Tan Zhenlin in Beijing, red guards from ZJU were told that Mao Zedong wanted to protect Jiang Hua in this revolution. This led to a split within red guards in Zhejiang, particularly with another faction led by Zhang Yongsheng from the Chinese Academy of Art, who wanted to persecute Jiang Hua. The two factions fought each other constantly throughout the Cultural Revolution.

1976 to present

With the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, Liu returned to ZJU as the honorary president, the only by far. In November 1980, ZJU became co-funded by both Ministry of Education and Zhejiang's provincial government.

In 1989, Zhejiang University students, along with more than 10 other universities in Hangzhou, demonstrated in Wulin Square in support of the democracy movement in Beijing. After hearing of the massacre in Beijing, the student protesters blocked the railway at Nanxingqiao station with their bodies for three days before negotiating with the vice-governor, Chai Songyue. At least 60 passenger trains and 166 freight trains were blocked during the protest.

Since 1988 to 1995, Lu Yongxiang assumed the president of Zhejiang University, during which he made "pursuing innovation" part of the university motto and reformed teaching and research systems, including introduction of the program of Advanced Honor Class of Engineering Education.

In 1995, it was selected into Project 211. In 1997, Wang Ganchang and Bei Shizhang in Beijing, and Su Buqing and Tan Jiazhen in Shanghai, wrote a joint letter to the then General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Jiang Zemin, recommending a merger of the four universities. In 1998, with the approval of the State Council, the new Zhejiang University was established as a merger of four major universities. With over 30,000 students and 10,000 staff, the new Zhejiang University was considered the largest higher education institution in Asia. Zhang Junsheng was appointed Party secretary of the university to oversee the merger. In 2005, the university founded Zhejiang University Holding Group, later renamed as Zhejiang University Yuanzheng Holding Group. As of 2022, there are several companies affiliated to the group have been publicly listed, including Insigma Technology, United Mechanical & Electrical, and Shenghua Land. In October 2005, the university's Hubin campus was sold at the price of 2.46 billion Chinese yuan to Kerry Properties for commercial complex development. In June 2012, Zhejiang University founded the Ocean College in collaboration with Zhoushan municipal government. In December 2014, the university signed an agreement with the University of Edinburgh to form a joint institute at the Haining campus. In July 2015, another agreement to build a joint institute was signed with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In September 2016, the new Haining campus came into use.

Campuses

Current campuses

With seven campuses, namely Zijingang, Yuquan, Xixi, Huajiachi, Zhijiang, Zhoushan, International campus in Haining and Ningbo, Zhejiang University encompasses an area of 6.22 square kilometers with school buildings covering 3.67 million square meters of floor space.

Zijingang campus serves as the main campus of Zhejiang University and is located in the northwest of Hangzhou. There are two libraries in the campus, i.e. the Basic Library next to the east gate and the Library of Agriculture and Medicine in the southeast corner and Library of Ancient Books in the south of the campus. The first floor of the Basic Library is an English corner every Tuesday and Thursday night. The campus is served by Sanba Station and Xialongwei Station of the Hangzhou Metro to the east of the campus and Zijingang Campus Zhejiang University Station on the south side.

The South Gate of the campus is linked to the Zijingang Campus Zhejiang University station with bridges over the Yuhangtang River, which were opened in February 2022. The gigantic, five-arched South Gate was built with donations from alumni, but widely regarded unfit for the purpose among ZJU students. In a public poll in 2021, the South Gate was voted as the ugliest building in China.

Zheda Road that stretches from the main gate of the campus to the High School Attached to Zhejiang University was known for its road greening landscape design. Alongside the road is a compound named Zheda Qiushi Village, also known as Qiushi Village, which was the residential area for Zhejiang University faculty and their family. Qiushi Primary School, also known as the Primary School Attached to Zhejiang University, and Hangzhou No. 15 Middle School, also known as the Junior High School Attached to Zhejiang University, are located near the compound. The Yuquan 1897 cafe within the campus is an English corner every Wednesday evening.

Xixi campus was previously the site of the former Hangzhou University before it merged into Zhejiang University in 1998. The campus hosts Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, School of Art and Archaeology, and Zhejiang University Press. The library is located in the Center of campus. Between the library and the south gate of the campus is a large meadow. The campus is next to Xuejun High School. Xuejun used to be the affiliated high school of Hangzhou University, and is among top two high schools in Hangzhou, hence a major source of students admitted into Zhejiang University. Due to the location, the university canteen at Xixi was often overloaded with high school students.

Off-campus research Centers

The university also has several research institutes off its campuses within Zhejiang, which include the Innovation Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, Zhejiang University Innovation Institute International, Innovative Institute of Basic Medical Sciences of Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, the Institute of Wenzhou, Research Institute of Zhejiang University – Taizhou, Institute of Quzhou, Institute of Jinhua, Institute of Huzhou, International Institutes of Medicine in Yiwu, the Institute of Shaoxing, and the Ocean Research Center of Zhoushan.

The institutes and research Centers outside the province include the Institute of State System Research (Beijing Research Center), Shanghai Institute for Advanced Study, Hainan Institute of Zhejiang University, the Institute of Shenzhen, Suzhou Industrial Technology Research Institute, and Changzhou Industrial Technology Research Institute, and Zhongyuan Institute in Zhengzhou.

Historical and proposed campuses

During the Second World War, the university left its campus in Hangzhou to evade Japanese invasion. During the wartime relocation, the university also temporarily used the campuses in Jiande in 1937, Ji'an, Taihe Yishan in 1938, before it finally arrived in Meitan and Zunyi, Guizhou in southwest China in early 1940. The university operated there for seven years until the war ended. In June 1939, the university set up a satellite campus headed by Zheng Xiaocang in Longquan, Zhejiang.

In 2016, Dr. Ye Yongfei of the central committee of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang suggest that the university restore the Meitan campus to support economic development in western China, which was echoed by the local government of Zunyi who set up a committee to gather support in 2018. In March 2018, the university responded that it had no substantial plan to restore the Meitan campus.

The university had a Hubin campus, which was the former site of Zhejiang Medical University. Most of the campus was demolished in January 2007 and turned into the Kerry Center, a modern commercial complex connected with Fengqi Road station of Hangzhou Metro, except for the former site of the High Court of Zhejiang and the Local Court of Hang County reserved as Hangzhou Urban Construction Exhibition Hall.

University identity and culture

Motto

During the University Council meeting held in Yishan, Guangxi on November 19, 1938, "seeking truth" (Chinese: 求是; pinyin: Qiúshì) was made the motto of the university, upon President Chu Kochen's advice. Qiushi is an excerpt of the famous quote in Yangmingism, "A Gentleman learns only to know what is right. (Chinese: 君子之學，唯求其是)" It was made the name of the former body Qiushi Academy in 1897, which means seeking truth and has the same pronunciation as truth in English. According to Chu,

Seeking truth is not limited to studying hard or doing experiments in the lab. As Doctrine of the Mean says, seeking truth is 'to study extensively, inquire prudently, think carefully, distinguish clearly, and practice earnestly.'

In May 1988, "pursuing innovation" was added to the university motto by the university council, to adapt the motto to the times of the reform and opening up. President Lu Yongxiang explained in 1992,

Strictly speaking, pursuing innovation is included in seeking truth, [...] but people often regard seeking truth as being practical, emphasising the acknowledgement and application of the existing body of knowledge and the objective analysis and knowledge of the reality, with no emphasis on being creative and innovative.

Anthem

During November 19, 1938 university council meeting, the neo-Confucianism scholar Ma Yifu, who was teaching at Chekiang was invited by President Chu to be the lyric writer of the university anthem, upon Chu's advice. However, as the lyric by Ma was written in Classical Chinese and thus difficult-to-understand, the anthem wasn't composed until Professor Ying Shangneng at National Conservatory of Music was invited to compose the anthem in the summer of 1941. In 2014, the Zhejiang University Anthem was ranked the most popular university anthem, according to an online survey by the news office of the Ministry of Education.

Mascot, logo and flag

The university's mascot is Qiushi eagle, which was first portrayed within its seal used by National Chekiang University during the 1920s and 1930s and then reintroduced in the 1990 logo of Zhejiang University. The Qiushi eagle also appears in the logos of NingboTech University and Zhejiang University City College, which was formerly affiliated institutions of Zhejiang University turned independent in December 2019.

The current logo of Zhejiang University was introduced by the university council meeting in January 1991. The logo was officially digitized in May 2017. The Chinese character calligraphy in the logo is taken from Mao Zedong's writing. A combination of the calligraphy and logo in red or blue if using a blank flag or in white if using a blue or red flag is used as the flags of the university.

Quotes of Chu Kochen

Chu Kochen, who served as the president of National Chekiang University from 1936 to 1949, is credited with a major impact on the guiding spirit of Zhejiang University. His two open questions for the freshmen who enrolled in 1936 has been inscribed in the stone next to the main gate of the Zijingang Campus as well as multiple sites within the university, which says,

You have two questions to ask yourself: First, what do you want to do at Zheda? Second, when you graduate, what kind of people do you want to be?

In another quote that is often displayed in the campus, Chu Kochen talks about the aim of university education, where he says,

The aim of university education is not to nurture experts such as engineers and doctors, but to build leaders that are just, patriotic, fortitudinous and persistent, that take major roles, that lead trends, and that change the destiny of this nation.

Administration and organization

Governance

The university is organized according to Zhejiang University Chapter approved by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China. The current chapter was approved in September 2014. According to the chapter, the university is a national university managed by the Ministry of Education and jointly funded by the central government and Zhejiang government. The university is operated by the Communist Party Committee of the university with the president taking the responsibility of decision making. The committee is required to ensure rule of law, academic freedom and democracy at the university. Since 2000, the president and party secretary of the university are appointed by the Organization Department of the Chinese Communist Party, and the appointees are automatically considered as vice-ministerial level officials. The party committee elects the members of the standing committee, which decide major issues at the university jointly with the party committee. The president hosts university council meeting to decide on teaching and learning, scientific research and administrative issues. The faculty can review and advise on university decisions via the faculty representative meeting. The current party secretary of the university is Dr. Ren Shaobo. The president of the university is Professor Dr. Du Jiangfeng.

Administrative departments

In the university has an administrative system that consists of 17 administrative departments. Among them, the Office of the Presidents set the strategic priorities for the university to maintain the university's leading position, while the Development and Planning Office is in charge of planning for the implementation of the strategic priorities. The Office of Global Engagement and the Division of Domestic Relations are responsible for implementing the university's strategy and promoting the university domestically and globally. The Human Resources Department recruits and provides services for the faculty, while the Undergraduate School and the Graduate School organise and supervise teaching, learning and degree awarding. The Administration of Continuing Education further provides training and supervision for continuing education programs. The research and development programs are supervised by the Sci-Tech Academy and the Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences, depending on the subject. The university research facilities and device are purchased, maintained, and evaluated by the Office of Laboratory and Equipment Management. The Department of General Affairs and the Office of Capital Construction are responsible for the management and construction of the university properties. The Medical Management Office manages the affiliated hospitals.

Academic Structure

The academic disciplines at the university are divided into seven faculties, which each has different schools. Each faculty, school and department has its own academic committee and different rules of procedures. The committee is organized by the faculty, with a restriction on the percentage of people who serve administrative roles. Selection of the members are based on recommendations within the faculty. The university is a key comprehensive university whose fields of study cover eleven branches of learning, namely philosophy, literature, history, education, science, economics, law, management, engineering, agriculture, and medicine. Below is the list of academic faculties, schools and colleges of the university:

School of Humanities

School of International Studies

College of Media and International Culture

School of Art and Archaeology

School of Economics

Guanghua Law School

College of Education

School of Management

School of Public Affairs

School of Marxism

The Faculty of Science was a combination of the sciences departments at Hangzhou University and Zhejiang University

School of Mathematical Sciences

Department of Physics

Department of Chemistry

School of Earth Sciences

Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences

Finances

According to the University Chapter, the university is largely funded by the government. The university has been selected into several national plans to nurture world-class universities, including Double First-Class Construction, Project 985 and Project 211. In 2022, with a budget of 26.1 billion Chinese yuan, the university had the second largest budget in China after Tsinghua. The university also raises money through income from its affiliations, government subsidy, donations and other legal sources of income. Zhejiang University consistently stands among top receivers of alumni donations in China. In 2021, it received 2.38 billion Chinese yuan, the fourth most after Tsinghua, Peking and Wuhan. On September 21, 2006, Chinese billionaires Duan Yongping (Zhejiang University alumnus) and Ding Lei (Zhejiang native) donated together a one-time endowment of 40 million US dollars to Zhejiang University. US$30 million was from Duan with 10 million from Ding. It was the largest private one-off endowment to a university in Mainland China. In 2017, the university received a donation of 1.1 billion Chinese yuan (circa.160 million US dollars), again breaking the record for highest alumni donation.

Academics

Teaching and learning

The academic departments are responsible for teaching and assessments of various courses and draft the details of degree programs, which needs to be approved by the Undergraduate and Graduate Schools before start; the detailed method may differ according to the course and the program. Teaching is supervised and regulated by the Undergraduate School and the Graduate School for quality control. Chu Kochen Honors College (CKC), named after the university's former president Chu Kochen, is an elite undergraduate college of ZJU, which further select students from top students at ZJU or in Gaokao. Teaching at Chu Kochen Honors College and international dual degree programs at Haining are supervised and regulated by their own responsible committees.

Degree awarding is based on academic credits requirement for compulsory and elective courses, which a student must both fulfill to graduate. To earn academic credits, the student can choose and pass a combination of courses at his or her will, as long as the course is available for enrolment, yet some courses may be competitive for enrolment due to class size limits.

Qiushi College was founded in July 2008, as a residential college and part of the School of Undergraduate. It managed the student dormitories including the Danyang-Qingxi Hall, the Ziyun-Bifeng Hall, and the Lantian Hall. It offers liberal arts education for freshmen and supports student organizations and activities. It also provides students with aids for academic affairs such as college major choices and team building. Upon enrolment into the university, undergraduates join a hall of Qiushi College at Zijingang mostly according to their faculties of study. In the student military training and education for all Chinese national freshmen, the students are organized according to their halls within the college. In the first year of study, the major of the student may be unspecified as they are recruited according to academic faculties rather than specific academic subjects. They are considered to be a student of the Hall but not of an academic department then. The student may later apply to study a major later or transfer to another major during the study, yet the application to popular majors are highly competitive and additional requirements may apply. The college is responsible for providing assistance to the student.

Chu Kochen Honors College (CKHC) was founded in May 2000 in honour of Chu Kochen, a former president of the university and is typically chaired by the current president of Zhejiang University. Its predecessor the Mixed Class of Engineering was launched in 1984. It offers a collection of programs including the Experimental Class of Engineering, the Mixed Class, the Experimental Class of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Qiushi Sciences Class, the Experimental Class of Medicine, the Shennong Class. Entry into the college is highly selective and competitive and its selection questions are known to be creative but difficult. Notable alumni of the college include entrepreneur Colin Huang and the current president of Zhejiang University Wu Zhaohui. Its teaching and learning are supervised by a special committee headed by the president. During the program, 15–20 percentile of the CKHC students in term of GPA will be transferred to non-CKHC programs.

Research

Zhejiang University is a comprehensive research university. Research at Zhejiang University spans 12 academic disciplines: agriculture, art, economics, education, engineering, history, law, literature, management, medicine, natural sciences, and philosophy.

Among its approximate 4,191 standing faculty members, more than 1,893 faculty members hold the title of professor. The faculty includes: 26 members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, 27 members of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, 164 Chang Jiang (Yangtze River) Award winners, and 154 recipients of the awards from the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars. Zhejiang University also has prominent foreign faculty members. Zhejiang University has 11 State Key Laboratories, as one of the universities with most SKLs in China, which include:

The university also has three State Specialized Labs, including the State Specialized Lab of Secondary Resources Chemical Engineering, the State Specialized Lab of Power Electronics, and the State Specialized Lab of Biomedical Sensor. Besides, the university has three labs of the Ministry of Education (MOE), including the MOE Key Lab of Soft Soils and Geoenvironmental Engineering, the MOE Key Lab of Conservation Genetics and Reproductive Biology for Endangered Wildlife and the MOE-Microsoft Key Lab of Visual Perception.

Library system

The library system has a total library collection of more than 7.9 million volumes, which is one of China's largest academic collections. The system has 6 branch libraries, namely Yuquan Campus Library, Basic Library of Zijingang Campus, Library of Agriculture and Medicine of Zijingang Campus, Library of Ancient Books of Zijingang Campus, Xixi Campus Library and Hujiachi Campus Library, plus 3 branch libraries within different colleges, namely Guanghua Law School Library, International Campus Library, Ocean College Library. Zijingang Campus is the only campus to have three library. One can reserve a book at any library for collection of a book that may belong to another library in the system.

Rankings and reputation

General rankings

Globally, ZJU is #24 globally (#3 in Asia & Oceania) in the Academic Ranking of World Universities 2025, #44 in QS World University Rankings 2024, #39 in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2026, and #35 in the USNWR 2026–2027.

ZJU was #33 worldwide (#5 in Asia and # 3 in China) in terms of aggregate performance across THE, QS, and, ARWU in 2024.

ZJU was #50 worldwide (#7 in Asia) in the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings.

Research performance

As of 2024, ZJU was ranked 5th among universities worldwide by SCImago Institutions Rankings.

The 2025 CWTS Leiden Ranking ranked ZJU 1st globally based on the number of scientific publications during 2020–2023.

Regarding scientific research output among academic institutions, the Nature Index Annual Table 2026 ranked ZJU #1 worldwide.

Subjects rankings

In the Essential Science Indicator (ESI) rankings of 22 disciplines, ZJU ranks among the top 1% in 15 disciplines and is listed in the top 100 of the world's academic institutions in 4 disciplines.

As of 2021, the U.S. News & World Report placed ZJU in the global Top 50 for "Agricultural Sciences", "Biotechnology and Applied Microbiology", "Chemical Engineering", "Chemistry", "Civil Engineering", "Computer Science", "Condensed Matter Physics", "Electrical and Electronic Engineering", "Energy and Fuels", "Engineering", "Food Science and Technology", "Material Science", "Mechanical Engineering", "Nanoscience and Nanotechnology", "Optics", "Physical Chemistry", "Pharmacology and Toxicology", "Plant and Animal Science" and "Polymer Science".

In the fourth round of China University Subject Rankings by the Ministry of Education released in 2018, ZJU had 31 subjects rated A, the most among Chinese universities, among which 11 subjects were rated A+, the third most after Peking and Tsinghua. Below is the list of A+/A/A- subjects of ZJU.

Graduate Employability

ZJU ranked #35 worldwide in the QS Graduate Employability Rankings 2022 and #71 worldwide in the Times Higher Education's Global University Employability Ranking 2025.

Student life

Student body

In June 2023, there were a total of 65,821 full-time students enrolled at Zhejiang University, including 29,117 undergraduates, 20,554 master's candidates and 16,150 doctoral candidates. In June 2023, there were 5,123 international students studying at Zhejiang University.

CC98 forum

CC98 is a student-run forum. It was created in December 2002. It can be accessed by visiting www.cc98.org on the school intranet. It consists of categorical boards for discussion on various topics. As of March 2023, the forum is available only in Chinese.

Notable people