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RENMIN UNIVERSITY OF CHINA
Beijing
History of Renmin University Of China
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?¡¥s 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¡ê?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.

 

RENMIN UNIVERSITY OF CHINA

ENROLLMENT PROSPECTUS FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

Renmin University of China (RUC), directly under the Ministry of Education (MOE), is a national key comprehensive institution that focuses mainly on humanities, social sciences, economics and managerial sciences, combined with disciplines of information science and environmental science. Founded in 1937, it has enrolled more than 170,000 students during its sixty years of history. At present, RUC is comprised of 18 colleges, a school of graduate studies and 2 departments. The institution offers 59 programs leading to the bachelor¡¯s degree, 112 programs leading to the master's degree, and 74 to the doctorate degree. There are also 25 key national academic disciplines, 8 postdoctoral programs and 12 national key research centers in humanities and social sciences as well. The number of research centers of RUC ranks first among the national higher learning institutions in China.

RUC is actively promoting academic exchange with foreign countries. It has established academic exchange programs with over 100 institutions of higher learning around the world. It is one of the key educational institutions that have accepted international students to China since 1949. Till now there are more than 4,000 foreign students from nearly 100 countries having graduated from RUC. Among those students, 35 were Ph.D. students, 138 were Master's degree students and 237 were bachelor's degree students. Presently, there are more than 700 students from more than 60 different countries.

Foreign students' enrollments are accepted in various courses and degree programs: Doctoral degree students, Master¡¯s degree students, Bachelor¡¯s degree students, senior scholars, general scholars, research scholars and language students.

Categories and Qualifications for Foreign Students

Eligible for Admission to Renmin University of China

Category

Qualifications

Duration of program

Bachelor programs

High-school graduate or above. Pass Level 6 of the HSK Test and the RUC entrance exams.

4 years

 

Master's programs

Bachelor¡¯s degree with honors. 2 or more letters of recommendation by associate professors. Applicants are also required to pass the RUC entrance exams.

 

2-3 years

Doctorate programs

Master¡¯s degree. 2 or more letters of recommendation by    professors. Applicants are also required to pass the RUC entrance exams.

 

3 years

Language programs

High-school graduate or above.

1-2 years

Preparatory courses 

High-school graduate or above, pass Level 3 of the HSK test.

1 year

General scholar

At least 2 years of undergraduate studies in the field to be studied in China, or a related field.

1-2 years

 

Senior scholar

Applicants are required to hold a degree equivalent to a Chinese master¡¯s degree. They will pursue studies on a certain subject under the direction of a Chinese advisor.

 

1 year

Research scholar

Associate professor or above in university.

1 year

NOTE: All students will be attending lectures in Chinese. Those arrivals that are not adequately prepared for the course work must first enroll in supplementary Chinese language courses.

Below is an explanation of the application procedures and fees.

I. APPLICATION

A. Application Procedures:

All matters concerned with the application of foreigners wishing to study at Renmin University of China under joint educational agreements will be handled according to the regulations and procedures of the Chinese Government. However, an individual wishing to study at RUC at his or her own expense may apply directly to the International Students Office of RUC. We warmly welcome organizations wishing to recommend foreign students to RUC.

B. Application Deadline:

The RUC's enrollment period is in the fall term, when it enrolls foreign students in all fields of studies. In the spring term, the RUC will enroll a small number of advanced students, and a small number of those wanting to study Chinese as foreign language. The fall term begins on September 1st and the spring term begins in the latter half of February.

 

All application materials for students wishing to enroll in the fall must be received by RUC before the end of May.All application materials for students wishing to enroll in the spring must be received by RUC before the end of December. The university will process application after the application deadline.

Every November is the graduate application period. All application materials for students wishing to enroll in the graduate programs next fall must be received by November 30. The entrance exams for master's students will be arranged in late January of the next year and for doctoral students at the end of March. Candidates who have passed the exams will enter the university in the beginning of September.

 

C. Application Details:

a) Fill in the "Application Form for Study at Renmin University of China" and the "Guardian's Guarantee", both of which are available from RUC.b) Provide notarized copies of transcripts and photocopies of diplomas for degrees earned. Those who apply for undergraduate and postgraduate programs should provide the HSK (Chinese Proficiency Test) certificate.c) Provide a letter of recommendation d) Have a health examination within six months of enrollment. The examination must pertain to the items on the form ¡°Physical Examination Record for Foreigner¡±, which is prepared by the Chinese Quarantine Department, and is available from RUC. A copy of all examination records should be submitted with your application. Please do keep the original documents yourself and bring them with you to China.

e) Application fee of US$ 50, payable to Renmin University of China for processing your application must be submitted together with the application materials. Application will not be processed without this fee. No refunds will be permitted.

II. EXPENSES

A. Tuition Fees (RMB/ per academic year):

Language and Preparatory course student   21,500 yuan

Bachelor¡¯s degree, General scholar         21,500 yuan

   Majors of law, journalism & international politics     23,200 yuan

Master's degree                   26,500 yuan

   Majors of law, journalism & international relations   28,200 yuan

Doctorate                                      29,800 yuan (US$ 3,600)

   Majors of law, journalism & international relations   31,500 yuan

Senior scholar                             27,300 yuan (US$ 3,300)

   Majors of law, journalism & international relations   29,000 yuan

Note: Students should pay their tuition at the beginning of the academic year in September for both semesters. No refunds are available.

B. Lodging Expenses:

There are 3 International Student Buildings on campus for students' accommodation. The cost for a 2-bed room in Building 1 and Building 2 is RMB 62 and RMB 70 per room per day. There are telephone and air-condition in the room. Common showers, washrooms and a study room are available on each floor. A guesthouse is open to foreign students as well. The single room (with one bed, TV, telephone, air-conditioner and a bathroom) costs about RMB 90 per day at International Students Building 3.All expenses should be paid in cash. Tuition should be paid either in US dollars or in RMB on arrival at RUC. Lodging fees should be paid in RMB.

C. Food Expenses:

The university maintains a canteen for foreign students, in which they may purchase meals at their own expense.