Jiangxi Normal University was jointly founded by the Ministry of Education and the Jiangxi government. Its predecessor was Chung Cheng University, established in 1940. The university is the oldest local undergraduate education facility and has now added the Yaohu and Qingshanhu campuses, covering an area of 300 hectares.
It offers bachelor, master and PhD programs. Its chemistry department is ranked within the top one percent of ESI. It has five post-doctoral research stations, three first-level doctoral programs, 26 second-level doctoral programs, and 36 second-level master programs.
The university is home to a national engineering and technological research center, a national university science park, two Ministry of Education key labs, a key lab of the General Administration of Sport, a national science and technology service platform, six provincial collaborative innovation centers designated in 2011, and 41 provincial key labs (engineering centers and research facilities). Annual scientific research project expenditure has surpassed 100 million yuan($15 million) since 2012. The university has been among the top ten normal universities in terms of receiving national funding nationwide over the past four years.
There are more than 2,900 faculty members, including 1,700 full-time teachers and 770 PhD holders and students. The faculty includes three full-time academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, three teachers on the Recruitment Program of Global Experts, one national well-known teacher, one expert on the national discipline appraisal panel, one national outstanding professional technician, two named to the New Century National Hundred, Thousand, and Ten Thousand Talents Project, two national outstanding young and middle-aged experts, 38 national model teachers, and 230 Jiangxi model teachers.
The university has 23 specialized institutes and one independent science institute. There are more than 30,000 full-time undergraduate and junior college students, and 5,000 postgraduate and PhD students. The university now offers 87 undergraduate programs, including six national, ten provincial and 25 special purpose ones. It has two national programs for comprehensive reform, two off-campus national college student internship facility development programs, one national humanistic quality education facility, two national experimental teaching demonstration centers, seven provincial excellent talent cultivation programs, eight provincial pilot programs for comprehensive reform, and many undergraduate education programs with other countries and provinces. The university received an “excellent” rating for its undergraduate education work by the Ministry of Education in 2005. It began to recruit students who qualified for first-grade universities in China in 2008. The university initiated an innovative talent cultivation program in 2012 and has offered free undergraduate education to 1,000 students annually since 2013. Its student employment rate has been steadily above 90 percent.
The university has vigorously carried out international cooperation and exchange. In 2011, it began to accept foreign students who received scholarships from the Chinese government. It has now established friendly relations with more than 50 institutes of higher learning from 23 countries and regions. Its academic scores are recognized by 28 foreign institutes, with which faculty and student exchange programs have been developed. The university receives students from 14 countries and regions. The Confucius Institute, jointly built in 2008 by the university and the University of Tananarive, Madagascar, was named a global model. In 2012, the university built its second Confucius Institute with the University of Illinois.
The university has cultivated nearly 200,000 outstanding talents over the past 75 years. Many students have become the backbone of their fields. It ranked 78th among universities nationwide in developing important leaders in 2015 and 87th in developing successful businesspeople.
