Brief Introduction
Northwest A&F University is situated in Yangling, famous agricultural town in China. It is the state-level agricultural high-tech industries demonstration zone in the country.
Northwest A&F University (NWAFU), established in 1934, is a state key university under the direct administration of Chinese Ministry of Education (MOE). As one of China’s top university, Northwest A&F University is supported by the central government under national “Project 985” and “Project 211”.
Currently, there are 23 colleges (departments or institutes) and a Graduate school. It has strong program in animal and plant breeding, plant protection, agricultural bio-technologies, dry-land framing and water saving irrigation, soil and water conservation on the Loess Plateau. The university has become an important base in nurturing high level talents, conducting research and transferring scientific achievements.
1. History
Northwest A&F University is a national key university. It has an old and abandoned name called Northwest Sci-tech University of Agriculture and Forestry, NWSUAF for short, which is still kept in the domain name of the university's official website.
The history of Northwest A&F University can be dated back to 1934 when National Northwest Senior College of Agriculture and Forestry was established by Ministry of Education, Republic of China based on an act drafted by Tai Chi-Tao, General Yang Hucheng and Yu Youren in 1932. This was the first national senior college with specialty on agriculture field in the north-west of China and was also the only independent senior college of its kind. Yangling, where the university is located, is believed as the birthplace of Houji, God of Abundant Harvests, and is the area where he taught people how to grow and harvest cereals. Since 1934, 7 academic institutions or universities resided here gradually and it is reputable as Town of Agriculture Sciences. Many achievements have been made by university, such as wheat cultivars Biman 1 (by Zhao, Hongzhang) and Xiaoyan 6 (by Li, Zhensheng) which were dominant wheat cultivars in Yellow River-Huai River Wheat Growth Area and significantly increased wheat quality and yield. The Ministry of Education and Shaanxi Province Government proposed to merge the 7 scientific organizations to 1 new University and finally get approved by State Council in 1999, thus establishing Northwest A&F University.
2. Discipline and programs
Northwest A&F University is the only education institution in China that is completely equipped with disciplines of agriculture, forestry, and water science. Currently there are all together 23 colleges (departments, institutes) and Graduate School, covering disciplines of agriculture, science, engineering, economics, business, liberal arts, law, philosophy, history, medicine, education, arts, etc.. It has 9 state key disciplines and 25 ministerial and provincial key disciplines and provides courses to both native and international students.
3. Academic facilities and Scientific research
The Museum Garden (a collection of 5 museums including insects, animals, plants, soil and China's agricultural history) holds the most extensive collection of butterflies in China's Universities. This garden is also the greatest Agriculture-themed museum area in China.
The well equipped air-conditioning system in the library which was initially launched in 1934 makes it a popular site for students' study. A training center for engineering in North Campus provides engineering courses and practices to all undergraduates; especially students majored at mechanics and electronics.
Northwest A&F University now has 66, inclusive of 23 key labs, 28 engineering (technology) research centers, and 9 field observatories at national and provincial level, and 2 provincial research centers of philosophy and social sciences. Currently, there are 2 state key laboratories, 1 state engineering laboratory, 2 state engineering research centers, 2 state off-campus field research stations, 52 provincial or ministerial research bases and 8 internationally collaborative platforms.
There are 4466 teaching and administrative staff, including 511 senior professionals and 936 associate senior professionals,1 academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences,1 academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, 7 national distinguished professors,3 distinguished professors and 3 chair professors of “Chang Jiang Scholar Program”,5 recipients of "National Outstanding Youth Fund",2 national Teaching Celebrity,12 award winners in the National "Thousand Young Talent Program",2 National Model Teachers, 3 National Outstanding Teachers, 71 winners of "Training Program Foundation for Talents of New Century",3 winners of “University Excellent Teacher Award”, 6 winners of “University Excellent Young Teacher Grant”,59 winners of Shaanxi” Talents Project”,75 recipients of Special Government Grants，342 doctoral advisors and 835 graduate advisors.
Northwest A&F University always aims at frontier development of high technology. In accordance with national and regional strategic demands, it has conducted applied researches in areas of Animal and Plant Breeding, Plant Protection, Agricultural Biology Technology, Agriculture and Irrigation Technology in Dry Areas, and Comprehensive Treatment to Water and Soil Loss in China’s Loess Plateau have developed distinguished features and priorities.
Applications of 1,552 national and provincial projects had been conducted by Northwest A&F University in 2014, 706 of which have been approved, including 51 key projects. The received fund reaches 358.740 million CNY (6.80 million CNY for humanities and social sciences research projects). Of all the approved research projects, 159 were officially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China with the total fund of 84.795 million CNY. The rate of funded projects has reached 30.21%, 6% higher than national average level and 4.48% higher compared with the previous year.
4. Great achievements
Northwest A&F University persist in close integration of production-learning-research, and have made significant contributions to China’s agricultural modernization and scientific research.
It has acquired more than 5000 accumulated scientific achievements in various areas, among which over 1800 achievements are awarded. Outstanding research accomplishments include“Bima-1”, the most widely planted wheat variety in China, and “Xiaoyan-6”, the leading replacement variety. The university researchers also developed the apple variety “Qinguan”, the most commonly planted apple variety in China. The direct economic benefit of promoting these achievements values over 200 billion CNY.
Northwest A&F University has 22 new plant varieties certificated and authenticated, including 17 provincial certificated varieties and 5 provincial registered and authenticated varieties; 260 State-authorized patents (8.4% higher compared to last year) includes 140 inventive patents, 119 utility patents and 1 design patent. 1855 papers have been included by SCI, EI and SSCI, (13.04% higher compared to last year), 1478 among which were singed Northwest A&F University the first unit.
5. Communication and international cooperation
Northwest A&F University is opening up to the outside world by actively implementing the strategy of internationalization, and has been expending international collaboration with more than 100 internationally recognized universities and research institutes.
The final information is subject to the University If there is any discrepancy!