Introduction

China Agricultural University (CAU), directly subordinated to the Ministry of Education, is a Key National University entering the State 985 Program and the State 211 Program. QU Zhenyuan is the Chair of the University Council and CHEN Zhangliang is the President.

Approved by the State Council, BAU and BAEU merged together to form the China Agricultural University (CAU) in September 1995. Jiang Zemin caligraphied CAU's name in Chinese for CAU. Premier of the State Council Wen Jiabao gave a significant speech to CAU during his inspection tour on 4 May 2003 . Vice Premier of the State Council Hui Liangyu also inspected some of CAU's labs, talked to CAU leaders, professionals and students, and delivered an important statement.

With one-hundred years of history, CAU has developed itself as a comprehensive university with agriculture as its distinguished feature and advantage. It covers a wide range of disciplines on a complementary basis, such as agriculture and life science, resources and environment, information and computer science, agricultural engineering and automation science, economic management and social sciences, etc. Currently, CAU is composed of 13 colleges involving in nine categories of agronomy, engineering, science, economics, law, literature, medicine and philosophy. In addition, CAU also has a Graduate School and a School of Continuing Education. Speaking educational sector, CAU owns 19 Key State Disciplines, 15 Key Ministerial Disciplines and ten Post-Doctor Working Stations. A number of key labs were also established in CAU including 3 Key State Labs, 22 Key Ministerial Labs, 4 State Research Centers, ten Ministerial Research Centers and five Innovative Research Teams.

CAU is proud of having a strong and highly qualified faculty team with 1,398 members in total. Among whom, there are five Academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and five Academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, 351 professors, 598 associate professors, nine specially-invited professors, 25 young faculty members supported by the State Science Foundation for Outstanding Young Professionals and 39 faculty members financed by the Ministry of Education Program for New Century Excellent Professionals. CAU also invited a number of world-known scholars including Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug as CAU Honorable Professors and Guest Professors.

CAU has today 15,891 undergraduate students enrolled, 3,355 and 2,065 postgraduate students registered for Master and PhD degrees, respectively. The CAU Post-Graduate Working Station has 95 post-doctorial researchers. In addition, CAU also has 2,262 and 139 postgraduate students working on Master and PhD degrees in specialized field, respectively. The number of students registered in School of Continuing Education and those for distance education reaches 35,093.

CAU has constructed itself as a research-oriented institute in order to better serve the country and the world by using its rich and highly qualified personnel resources. Attention has been paid to fundamental researches with focus on high-technologies in the fields of agriculture and biology aiming at applied prospects significant to national economic development. In year 2005 alone, CAU was awarded three times for State Prize and 25 times for Ministerial Prize.

(Source: China Agricultural University)