Jiangsu Polytechnic University (JPU) was founded in 1978. Originally it was named Jiangsu Institute of Petrochemical Technology (1992-2002). It is a four-year comprehensive university offering courses in engineering, science and liberal arts and under the jurisdiction of the Jiangsu Provincial Government.

JPU is situated in the ancient cultural city of Changzhou in the southern part of JiangsuProvince. The city stands midway between Shanghai and Nanjing in a dynamic economically developed region of the Yangtze Delta, a region with modern industry, a booming economy and convenient transportation facilities. ChangzhouAirport, thirty kilometers northwest of the city proper, offers access to most of the major cities in China. The city is accessible by air, water, rail or highway.

JPU has two campuses with an area of almost one hundred hectares. The old campus is five kilometers from the center of the city, and the new campus is approximately eight kilometers away from the city center and fifteen kilometers from the old campus. The new campus is currently has an enrollment of approximately 8,000 students. The two campuses offer forty-two undergraduate specialties and five three-year college programs and 12 master¡¯s programs. JPU recruits students from cities, provinces and autonomous regions of China. It also has overseas students taking short-term language courses on campus. Because the university is committed to quality education, its graduates are highly praised by employers. The employment rate of JPU¡¯s graduates has reached over 96 percent five consecutive years.

JPU has almost 900 staff members, of whom 440 are full-time teachers. Fifty percent of them hold senior professional titles; two hundred have obtained masters and doctorates. Nineteen experts enjoy the Government Special Subsidiary; six have been awarded the Provincial-wide Outstanding Experts with Contribution.

The University boasts an AdvancedEducationTechnologyCenter, a LanguageTrainingCenter, an Analysis & TestingCenter and a Sports Complex. A large multi-media room and a computerized browsing system in the library offer state-of-art equipment. The library possesses over 998,800 volumes. The teaching and research equipment represents more than 130,800,000 RMB. Since 1999, JPU has been Changzhou's main network station of the China Education & Research Network and one of the earliest distant education sites in JiangsuProvince. Campus-computer users have easy access to the Internet through the campus net.

JPU also boasts the Applied Chemistry (Fine Chemical Engineering) Branch and Chemical Process Mechanism Branch listed in the key branches of learning by China Petrochemical Industrial Group, and the Fine Petrochemical Engineering Lab in a list of the provincial key laboratory. In the recent years, over 800 scientific and collaborative programs were carried out. Now eleven projects were sponsored by the National Natural Scientific Fund of China, and more than forty have been awarded the Scientific Progress Projects by the provincial organizations. In 2005, twenty-three million RMB in scientific funds have been presented to the school and 55 scientific results have been patented by the state authorities.

JPU is committed to meeting and exceeding the expectations of the Jiangsu local economy and petrochemical enterprises. The school has expanded in size and continues to strengthen its educational capacity. The university¡¯s mission is to lay a solid academic foundation to build a higher academic level, integrated with the development of the students¡¯ creativity, personality and practical ability and prepare them to take other new challenges in China¡¯s rapidly development.

International Exchanges

The authorities of JPU strongly emphasize the importance of developing international exchanges and cooperation. In 2005, the University sent twenty-four teachers to the United States, Canada and United Kingdom to carry out academic research programs. Since 1983, JPU has sent more than one hundred scholars to ten different countries in North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific regions. Many have returned with advanced degrees and research achievements to become the backbone of the teaching and scientific research work of the university.

JPU has also invited more than seventy-five foreign experts and scholars to give lectures on campus since the 1990s. They shared up-to-date information and quality research findings with the colleague academics, stimulating their creative thinking. Well-known experts and scholars nationally and internationally have been invited as part-time professors. They conducted joint scientific research with our research fellows and achieved superb results. In 2003, we established contacts with universities and research institutions in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway¡­

The foreign faculty team is a valuable asset to our university. The Foreign Teachers¡¯ Program started in 1992. Since then JPU has had nearly fifty teachers working on campus. Each year, JPU has foreign teachers from English?Cspeaking countries to teach English communication and teachers with specialties to teach English for special purposes. Their participation contributes to the rich language atmosphere on the campus and fine academic performance of the undergraduates. Each year about a number of the graduates pursue their further education abroad. In 2001, ten percent of our graduates were admitted by either prestigious universities in China or universities in the United States, Canada or European countries for their further degree study. In recent years, the University has been running overseas students programs. Most of the foreign students come to take short-term Chinese courses. In the recent three years, JPU has established cooperation with Heri-wattUniversity in Great Britain, St.FrancisXavierUniversity in Canada and National University of Ireland, Maynooth in Ireland, which provide lots of opportunities for students in JPU of further studying aboard.