Jiangnan University

Overview

Jiangnan University

Jiangnan University (JiangnanU) is a national university in Wuxi, Jiangsu, China. It was established in 1958 but its roots can be traced back to the founding of San Jiang Normal School in 1902. It is managed by China’s Ministry of Education and belongs to the elite “Project 211” Chinese institutions of higher education. JiangnanU is also one of the fastest-growing universities in the country, with its food science and technology programs consistently earning the top spot in various international rankings.

Jiangnan University Key Statistics

The university comprises 18 schools that include the Wuxi School of Medicine, the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the School of Chemical and Material Engineering, the School of Biotechnology, and the School of Food Science and Technology.

Jiangnan University offers 48 undergraduate programs spread across nine disciplines such as arts, education, law, management, economics, literature, medicine, engineering, and science. It also offers 58 master's and 28 Ph.D. degree programs.

The student population at Jiangnan University is over 30 thousand, composed of over 20 thousand undergraduates and almost 10 thousand postgraduates. It employs more than 3,300 academic and administrative personnel. The university is also home to over 1,200 international students.

The other Jiangnan University key statistics include seven Post-doctoral Research Stations in academic fields such as design, textile engineering, control science and engineering, chemical engineering and technology, and food science and technology.

Jiangnan University Research

JiangnanU has taken the lead in making China an innovation-driven country, particularly in the area of food technology. This was initiated through the establishment of the Collaborative Innovation Center for Food Safety and Nutrition.

Chemistry, materials science, and biochemistry are the university’s top three fields of research. Jiangnan University research outputs have been published in prestigious journals like Food Chemistry, Food Hydrocolloids, and Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Its researchers have been invited to attend international conferences such as Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, the Congress on Evolutionary Computation, and the European Conference on Computer Vision.

The most cited publications of Jiangnan University are Sun et al.’s (2004) “Particle swarm optimization with particles having quantum behavior,” published in the Congress on Evolutionary Computation with 1,963 citations; Zhang et al.’s (2006) “Trends in microwave-related drying of fruits and vegetables,” featured in Trends in Food Science and Technology with 903 citations; and Li et al.’s (2008) “Antioxidant and free radical-scavenging activities of chickpea protein hydrolysate (CPH)” published in Food Chemistry with 793 citations.

Some of the key Jiangnan University research institutes include the Key Laboratory of Science and Technology of Eco-Textile, Ministry of Education, the National Engineering Research Centre for Function Food, the National Engineering Laboratory for Cereal Fermentation Technology, the Key Laboratory of Carbohydrate Chemistry and Biotechnology, Ministry of Education, and the National Key Lab of Food Science and Technology. It also has established 18 international joint laboratories and five "111 Plan" Bases for Innovation and Talent Recruiting.

In addition, Jiangnan University is ranked 17th in the list of Patent Awards for Chinese Universities and has won seven State Scientific and Technological Progress Awards and State Technological Invention Awards to date.