Huazhong University of Science & Technology

A national key university, the Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) is often referred to as the flagship of China’s higher education sector in the post-Civil War period in the country.

NOMENCLATURE: Also known as the ’Central China University of Science and Technology’ owing to its location, HUST is a coeducational public university devoted to research activities.

THE FEATHER IN CAP: The university runs the Wuchang-based Wuhan National Laboratories for Opto-electronics (WNLO), one of the five national laboratories of the country.

MOTTO: The motto of HUST is Illustrious Virtue, Erudite, Practical and Innovation (Morality, knowledge, truth and innovation).

MASCOT: The university mascot is made up of ‘White Cloud and Yellow Crane’; and the institution’s color is Blue .

WEBSITE: You can find more details by logging on to the Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) official sites: www.hust.edu.cn/english/ (English); www.hust.edu.cn (Chinese ).

TRACING THE ROOTS

The roots of the Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) can be traced to 1907 when a Medical School was established at Wuhan in the Hubei Province of China in 1907. The following annals of the university can be divided into three phases, namely the first (1952-54), the second (1954-66), the third (1966-76), the fourth (1976-88), and the fifth phase (1988-2000).

THE FIRST ‘SETTLING DOWN’ PHASE (1952-1954): In 1952, an engineering school was incorporated to the institute and the new entity was named Huazhong Institute of Technology. In the post-Civil War period after 1952, the Chinese Government initiated an ambitious blueprint to accelerate the pace of all-round development of the country. As a vital part of this plan, it also rearranged the higher seats of learning as it would have to shoulder the stewardship in the new socio-economic and political reformation. The Government established three institutes devoted entirely to science and Information Technology at Wuhan. Besides the Huazhong Institute of Technology (HIT), the other two were the South-Central China Institute of Power Engineering and the South-Central China Institute of Water Conservancy and Electric Power.

A new innings was opened in 1953 when the South Central China Government (with due nod from the Central Government of China) signed the charter of the Institute. The site earmarked for its three campuses was to the south of the Yujia Hill. Prominent physicist Qian Zha was offered the chair of the institute while noted economist Peigang Zhang was appointed as the chief in planning of the ambitious and prestigious HIT project. In June 1953, the site for the South-Central China Institute of Water Conservancy and Electric Power was chosen at the land south of the East Lake. The Government, however, decided to put in the back burner for sometime the idea of setting up an independent South-Central China Institute of Power Engineering. The responsibility of managing the power engineering programs was reposed on the Huazhong Institute of Technology (HIT) that was inaugurated on October 15, 1953.

THE SECOND ‘EARLY DEVELOPMENT’ PHASE (1954-1966): This period witnessed the shaping up of the various programs connected to power engineering, electrical engineering, electricity and mechanical engineering in Huazhong Institute of Technology (HIT). The syllabus was prepared in the lines of those followed in the following three universities: The Guangxi University, the Hunan University, the South China Institute of Technology, and the Wuhan University. The first HIT classes organized in those institutions were conducted by a strong full-time faculty group of 314. Its eight undergraduate courses then had 2,639 pupils. Physicist Qian Zha who was the Dean of the School of Engineering Of Wuhan University became the president of the HIT while the first provost was Gancai Liu. The Ministry of Education of China declared HIT a national key university and decided to directly administer it in 1960.

THE THIRD PHASE DURING THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION (1966-1976): A major section of the Wuhan Mechanical University was merged with HIT in 1971. Significantly, it happened during the crucial phase of the ‘Cultural Revolution’ in China. As the university increased the undergraduate programs to 20, the number of students also reached 6,087. The number of faculty members then rose to 6,087.

THE FOURTH ‘GLOBAL VIEW’ PHASE (1976-1988): A major development took place in 1978 when the Huazhong Institute of Technology (HIT) started enrolling students for the graduate courses. In 1984, HIT became one of the 22 Chinese universities to get the approval of the State Council to run graduate courses. In 1988, the State Education Council rechristened the institute as ‘Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST)/(华中理工大学).

THE FIFTH ‘REFORM’ PHASE (1988-2000): During this period encompassing just two years, the Huazhong University of Science and Technology led the country’s double-pronged mission to reform the China’s economy and also strategize the country’s global policies. Besides hosting a number of nation-wide talks in humanities, HUST became the maiden Chinese technical school to also establish the Department of Economics, the Department of Journalism and Communication, and the Department of Literature.

THE SIXTH ‘MILLENIUM VISION’ PHASE (2000- ): The two most significant developments of this phase were the merger of three other technical institutes with the HUST and the rephrasing of the Chinese nomenclature of the new entity keeping intact the English version. The new Chinese name was (华中科技大学). The three institutes merged with the new Huazhong University of Science and Technology were: the Tongji Medical University (同济医科大学), the Wuhan Urban Construction Institute (武汉城市建设学院), and the Wuhan Science and Technology Vocational College (科技部干部管理学院).

• Schools and Departments


• School of Mechanical Science and Engineering


• School of Life Science and Technology


• College of Electrical and Electronic Engineering


• College of Materials Science and Engineering


• School of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering


• Department of Electronic Science and Technology


• School of Energy and Power Engineering


• Department of Control Science and Engineering


• School of Hydropower and Information Engineering


• School of Software Engineering


• Institute for Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence


• Department of Electronics and Information Engineering


• School of Architecture and Urban Planning


• School of Civil Engineering and Mechanics


• School of Mathematics and Statistics


• School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering


• School of Economics


• Tongji Medical College (Former Tongji Medical University)


• School of Pharmacy


• School of Medicine and Health Management


• Department of Forensic Medicine


• Family Planning Research Institute


• School of Management


• College of Public Administration


• School of Journalism and Information Communication


• School of Foreign Languages


• School of Marxism


• Department of Sociology


• Institute of Historical Studies


• Academy of Chinese Learning


• Law School


• Department of Physical Education


• School of Distance and Continuing Education


• School of International Education


• Network and Computer Center