Renmin University of China (RUC, also known as the People's University of China) is a key university in China. The RUC's strengths emphasize the humanities and social sciences, however, the university also embraces disciplines in the area of natural sciences. The RUC is a comprehensive research-orientated university.
The RUC was established in 1937, during the resistance war against Japanese aggression. The University acquired its present name on October 3, 1950, which made it the first university to be established by the newly founded People's Republic of China.
Well-known educators including Wu Yuzhang, Cheng Fangwu, Yuan Baohua. Huang Da, and Li Wenhai have all served as president of the University. The RUC incumbent president is Professor Ji Baocheng, and Professor Cheng Tianquan is the Chairman of the University Council.
Since its establishment, RUC students and teachers have always endeavored to carry out its redoubtable injunction to "unceasingly strive to be always in the vanguard". The RUC shares a common fate with the Party and the nation. Through prudence, dedicated effort, active and practical exploration, the RUC has become an important teaching and research base in the areas of the humanities, social sciences, and management science in China. Owing to its efforts in spreading and popularizing Marxism in China, for its achievements in developing philosophy and the social sciences in China, and on account of its indispensable contributions to the cause of socialist construction and reform, the RUC is regarded as "A Standard in the Humanities and Social Sciences in China?ˉs Higher Education Sector".
With undergraduate education as the base and an emphasis on postgraduate education, supplemented by adult education courses and online learning, the RUC has formed a multi-dimensional structure and multilevel system in education and research. The RUC has a Graduate School which is responsible for the administration of postgraduate students, and RUC now comprises twenty-one schools of different disciplines (a Chemistry Department has been established for the near future creation of a School of Natural Sciences). The RUC also has a substantial number of research centers, fourteen transitional centers for post-doctoral fellows, and also a School of Continuing Education, a School of Education and Training, and the Shenzhen Research Institute. The RUC ranks first in three areas among all universities in China: there are six national research bases in fundamental disciplines in the literary arts; thirteen key national research bases in the humanities and social sciences; and twenty-five essential domestic disciplines are taught on campus, which places the RUC first in the social sciences and humanities nationwide.
The quality of postgraduate research is witnessed in the sixteen doctoral degree dissertations that have been awarded outstanding prizes in nationwide evaluations of Ph.D dissertations. The RUC is now authorized to offer bachelor's degrees in sixty areas, and double degree in eight areas. The RUC has ninety-nine Masters programs and sixty-six Ph.D. programs. The RUC ranks third among all the universities in China with respect to the number of disciplines. In a recent appraisal conducted by the Ministry of Education, five disciplines at the RUC rank first among all the universities in China. These disciplines are: Theoretical Economics; Applied Economics; Legal Studies; Sociology; and Journalism and Communication. The same appraisal saw the RUC programs in Political Science, Management of Agricultural and Forestry Economics, History, and Business Administration also score very well. These results fully demonstrate the great potential of the strength in teaching and research at Renmin University.
The RUC has a strong faculty. Renowned scholars of past generations strove to pave a solid foundation for the construction and development of disciplines, in education and training, and for furthering research. These scholars include Wu Yuzhang, Cheng Fangwu, Fan Wenlan, Ai Siqi, He Sijing, He Ganzhi, He Luo, He Hua, Shang Yue, Wu Jingchao, Li Jinghan, An Gang, Shi Jun, Miao Langshan, Li Xiulin, Xu He, Han Feng, Xu Mengxiong, Meng Yang, Tong Rou, Dai Shiguang, Liu Zheng, Zha Ruichuan, and Miao Litian. At present, the RUC has a large group of well-known leading scholars who are highly regarded both in China and overseas. A highly qualified and well structured teaching and research body has been formed. This year the RUC has a staff of 1,485 which includes 424 professors and 595 associate professors. The RUC has the top ranking in terms of the number of scholars who have gained official recognition from both the national and Beijing municipal governments.
In addition, 198 eminent scholars from overseas, and 930 well-known intellectuals and scientists from various fields in China, have contributed to the teaching and research at the RUC as honorary professors, resident professors, or part-time professors.
The RUC's education standard is to cultivate and produce "outstanding exemplars for the nation and the backbone of society". Giving full play to the advantages conferred by having the largest number of branches of learning in the humanities and social sciences, and augmenting that with the RUC's overall high standard in these fields, the RUC has produced a large body of talented personnel in the theoretical, practical, and managerial worlds, in order to promote China's economic construction and social development. Since 1937, the university has turned out 180,000 high-level talented personnel in various fields who have become well known in their fields of work, and who individually and collectively have made a great contribution to the development and progress of the country.
At present, the RUC has an enrollment of 18,752 students, this breaks down into 9,262 undergraduate students and 9,490 postgraduate students. The ratio of postgraduates to undergraduates is the highest of all the research-orientated comprehensive universities in China. In addition, the RUC also has an enrollment of 10,000 in adult education, about 80 percent of whom are doing courses leading to a Bachelor's degree. At the RUC, there is a collective enrolment of 30,000 Chinese students engaged in online learning, and there are 1,066 .international students.
As an important research institution in the humanities and social sciences in China, the RUC is playing an active role in research into major issues in politics, economics, and social studies. The role the RUC has played, and the contributions RUC has made, have provided a strong theoretical underpinning and enthusiastic intellectual support for China's economic construction and social development. Between 2000 and 2004 the RUC has received 118 provincial and ministerial level research awards, making the RUC one of the top universities in this regard. In the same period, the RUC has secured 137 competitive projects from the National Social Sciences Foundation, and has won the bidding for 175 humanities and social science projects from the Ministry of Education. The RUC again ranks first among all universities in China with respect to the number of projects awarded to each university in China. The RUC has also secured the lion's share of research projects from the Beijing Municipal Government. Between 2000 and 2004, the RUC has won a total of 1,800 projects at different levels in different fields. The total amount of these research grants has reached 150 million yuan. In terms of the number of projects and the total amount of funds, the RUC is placed first among all universities in the areas of humanities and social sciences in China. The RUC has been awarded 12 out of the 79 projects on national strategy in philosophy and social science research conducted under the aegis of the Ministry of Education; once again this places the RUC ahead of all other universities in China.
The RUC is a platform for academic and cultural exchanges between China and the world. The RUC has established academic exchange relationships with 118 universities from 32 countries and regions in the world. The RUC has purchased the copyright to a large number of international books and has translated and published these books in order to meet the demands brought about through the reform and opening up process in China. A series of important collaborative projects have come into being at the RUC, and the RUC has hosted or organized a series of high-level international conferences on campus. Some internationally recognized scholars have been awarded the title of honorary professor by the RUC. These scholars include:
Robert Mondell, Nobel Prize winner, a well-known economist
Joseph E. Stiglitz,
Michael Spence,
Ronald Mckinnon,the founder of modern financial development theory, a well-known economist
Padma Desai,the founder of transitional economic theory, a well-known economist
Edmund S. Phelps,the hand behind the seminal work, Microeconomic Foundations of Employment and Inflation Theory, a famous economist
Jean-Jacques Laffont,well-known economist from France
Jagdish Bhagwati,a former consultant to the UN and presently a professor at Columbia
Nicholas H. Stern,Vice-President of the World Bank
Daisaku Ikeda,Famous thinker and educator from Japan
Ishi Hiromitsu, Chancellor of Hitotsubashi University, Japan
Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO
Sparmurat Niyazov, President of Turkmenistan
Some internationally renowned people have been awarded an honorary Ph.D. degree by the RUC, among their number are:
J.C. Harsanyi, Nobel Prize winner, a famous economist
Robert Mundell￡?Nobel Prize winner, a well-known economist
de la Lengua, former President of Argentina
Takeshita Noboru, former Prime Minister of Japan
Michael Kenneth Moore, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and former Director General of the WTO
The RUC also functions as a resource center for data, information, and publications in the humanities and social sciences in China. The University Library has advanced facilities and has a collection of 2.5 million books. The CALIS Information Center in Social Sciences and Humanities, which was established by the Ministry of Education, is located within the University Library. The China Renda Social Sciences Information Center is an authoritative institution that collects, categorizes, stores, and publicizes publications in the humanities, social sciences, economics, and management studies. The Annual Newspaper Data Reference edited and published by the China Renda Social Sciences Information Center is one of the four major document retrieving indexes in China. The RUC Press was the first university publishing house established after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and is an important academic publishing house for university textbooks, as well as for academic and theoretical works in the humanities and social sciences.
Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping all had great confidence in Renmin University of China, and Communist Party leaders have continued to show great concern for the construction and development of the RUC. Mr Jiang Zemin, former President of China, wrote inscriptions for the RUC on two occasions, expressing his high expectations that the RUC could do its best to produce outstanding talented personnel for the construction of socialist modernization in the new century. Mr Jiang Zemin visited the RUC on 28 April, 2002, and made an important speech in which he expressed the hope that the RUC would, "Achieve new accomplishments in the new century, make greater contributions to the motherland, for the people, and for the construction of socialist modernization, and become one of the world's best and most renowned universities in the humanities and social sciences".
At present, staff members and students of the RUC are holding high the standard that "Development is the paramount principle", we strive to emancipate the mind, to seek truth from facts, to maintain our position at the forefront of knowledge, to creatively forge ahead with full force to build a world-renowned university that is approved by and satisfies the people.
