China University of Geosciences (CUG)

The China University of Geosciences (CUG) is one of the key national universities of the country. Administered directly by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, the University is today counted among the top seats of higher learning especially in the highly technical field of geosciences.

The University is also the leader in the oil and the mining sectors of China, and therefore has a considerable say in the country’s policy making in those two significant areas. This niche is also due to the fact that several of its alumni are top shots in the country’s policy making arena. Mention can be made of Wen Jiabao, who has been the Premier of China’s State Council. He was very much present at the Beijing Campus of the Beijing Institute of Geology.

MOTTO: The China University of Geosciences follows the motto of “Being austere and simple, keeping on practice and acting for truth.”

CAMPUSES: The two campuses of the Beijing Institute of Geology are located in Wuhan and Haidan. While Haidan is a district within Beijing, Wuhan is the capital of the Hubei Province in Central China.

The Haidan campus of CUG is situated at the site of its precursor — the BIG. This sprawling area at Xueyuan Road in Beijing is an academic epicenter. There are eight other famed institutions of higher education here.

The sprawling Wuhan Campus of the University on the Lumo Road is also known for the maximum number of majors offered in courses other than geosciences in the country. Its Yifu Museum draws tourists from across the world. One of its spectacular sections showcases dinosaur fossils besides rock and mineral specimens.

WEBSITES: The two websites for the two campuses in Beijing and Wuhan of the University are: www.cugb.edu.cn (Beijing) and www.cug.edu.cn (for the Wuhan campus).

HISTORY: The roots of the China University of Geosciences (CUG) have been traced to the Beijing Institute of Geology (BIG) established in October 1952. It was formed by merging the Departments of Geology of four institutions. Of them one was a college while the other three were universities, namely the Tangshan Railway College, the Tianjin University, the Peking University, and the Tsinghua University. BIG was one of the maiden 16 key universities of China. However, it had to suspend its operations for four years from 1996 to 1970 owing to the Cultural Revolution in China.

In 1970, the Beijing Institute of Geology reopened as ‘Hubei Institute of Geology’ in Jiangin County, Hubei Province. Five years later, i.e., in 1975, the institute shifted to Wuhan and renamed as the ‘Wuhan Institute Geology’ (WIG).

A watershed in the annals of the institute was 1978 when due to the efforts of Deng Xiaoping, the Beijing Institute of Geology could reopen in Beijing once again.

In 1986, the Government endorsed the move of WIG to set up a Graduate School that carved a niche for itself and was among the top 33 Graduate Schools in the country. A year later in 1987, WIG was rechristened as China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) while BIG was given the nomenclature of China University of Geosciences (Beijing). The latter was among the maiden group of 15 universities to be included in the prestigious Project 211 of the Ministry of Education, People’s Republic of China.

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