Northwestern Polytechnical University

In 1938, due to the Japanese invasion of China, many universities in the occupied east evacuated to "Free China" in the western hinterland. Among those that fled to Shaanxi, the National Beiyang Engineering Institute, the Engineering School of Beiping University, the Engineering School of the National Northeastern University, and the (private) Jiaozuo Engineering Institute were combined to form the National Northwestern Engineering Institute in Hanzhong, a city surrounded by mountains. In 1946, after the surrender of Japan, Northwestern Engineering Institute was relocated to the city of Xianyang.

In 1952, to meet the demand for concentrated aeronautics research, the departments of aeronautical engineering of the former National Central University (later known as Nanjing University), Jiaotong University and Zhejiang University were relocated to Nanjing and combined to form the East China Aeronautics Institute. This institute was relocated to Xi'an and renamed the Xi'an Aeronautics Institute, which is the second predecessor of the NPU, in 1956.

In 1957, the Northwestern Engineering Institute and the Xi'an Aeronautics Institute were merged to form NPU, which concentrated its research efforts on defense technology for aeronautics, astronautics and marine engineering.

In 1970, due to deteriorating relations with the former USSR, the People's Liberation Army Military Engineering Institute, which was located in Harbin, was disassembled. Many of its departments were relocated from the city near the China-Soviet border; among these, its Department of Aeronautical Engineering (the third predecessor of NPU) was moved to Xi'an and merged with the other two predecessors to form NPU.

The Youyi Campus, often referred as the 'old campus', is divided into three parts: the South, the West and the North by the West Youyi Road and the South Laodong Road. The campus contains education facilities, apartments of teachers and students, stadiums, logistics facilities, a kindergarten and the primary and middle school affiliated with NPU.[4]

The Chang'an Campus, often referred as the 'new campus', is divided into two parts: the East and the West by the Dongxiang Road. This campus contains many newly built administration buildings, school buildings, experiments facilities, sports facilities and so on. It serves as the main base for undergraduate education of NPU.[5]

The Taicang Campus，located at the border between Suzhou and Shanghai，is currently under construction and will start to run in September 2021. This campus will contain 10 schools including School of Artificial Intelligence, School of Flexible Electronics, School of Business etc. It will serve around 10,000 students.

NPU is building or going to build more facilities on both of these two campuses. Supported by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the former Commission for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, NPU has received a 1.58 billion CNY (US$252.8 million) investment in infrastructure constructions from the central government and there're more than 20 construction projects running currently including the Material Science Building, the Innovation Science and Technology Building, the Reconstruction of Dangerous and Old Apartments after the earthquake, the #1 Student Apartment in the Youyi Campus and the New Library, Infrastructure Plan I & II, the High-tech Experimental Research Center and others in the Chang'an Campus.[6]

The university's research funding has been continually rising every year. It reached 1.67 billion RMB in 2010 (US$0.26 billion), ranking 5th among all universities in China with funding per faculty member ranked 1st. And, in 2011, it reached 1.91 billion RMB.[8]

In 2019, NPU ranked 27th in the Chinese university ranking, the most famous ranking in China. And, NPU's engineering ranked the 10th among China's engineering universities.[9]

According to the results of the 3rd Evaluation of Disciplines by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, the ranks of parts of NPU's disciplines are shown below.[10]

The University has 7 State Key Laboratories and 28 Province/Ministry-level Key Laboratories. Only the State Key Laboratories are listed below.[11] These labs often specialize in particular areas of academic research and receive government funding:

• Materials science
• Chemistry
• Mathematics and Physics
• Geography
• Biotechnology
• Information technology
• Engineering
• Medicine

The Education Experimental School is the college with special honors in NPU. Its predecessor is the Education Reform Class established in 1985 which was upgraded to the current school in 2001. The aim of this school is to provide the most elite students of NPU with the best resources so that they can become future leaders in their fields.[12]

NPU has 15 academic schools, 1 educational experimental school( known as Honors College), 1 independent school and some other administrative schools.[13] The university offers 58 undergraduate programs, 117 master programs, 67 doctorate programs and 14 postdoctoral programs. Currently, there are 2 First-level National Key Disciplines, 7 Second-level National Key Disciplines, 2 National Key (to cultivate) Disciplines, 21 First-level Disciplines for Doctorate Degree Granting and 31 First-level Disciplines for master's degree Granting. Additionally, NPU has 7 State Key Laboratories, 28 Province/Ministry-level Key Laboratories and 19 Province/Ministry-level Engineering Research Centers. The 15 academic schools of NPU are listed here in the official order.

1. School of Aeronautics
2. School of Astronautics
3. School of Marine Science and Technology
4. School of Materials Science and Engineering
5. School of Mechanical Engineering
6. School of Mechanics, Civil Engineering and Architecture
7. School of Power and Energy
8. School of Electronics and Information
9. School of Automation
10. School of Computer Science and Technology
11. School of Science
12. School of Management
13. School of Humanities, Economics and Law
14. School of Software and Microelectronics
15. School of Life Science
16. School of Foreign Languages

Besides the 15 major academic schools and the education experimental school, NPU has other schools or institutes.[13] They are:

• Engineering Practice Exercise Center
• Physical Education Department
• Continuing Education School
• Internet Education School
• International College
• National Secrecy School
• Mingde College (independent)

The Innovation Study Base, directed by the Dean's Office of NPU, consists of multiple student competition programs including NPU's university team of Football Robotics, Dancing Robotics, Model United Nations, Mathematical Modeling, Model Airplanes and so on. In the 11th Five-year plan, NPU students won more than 1,400 awards at the international, state and provincial levels including 54 1st or 2nd place international level award and 147 1st or 2nd national level award.

The Student Club Center, directed by the Communist Youth League of NPU, serves all university-level student clubs. The center helps to organize and supervise student activities on the campus and acts like a bridge between the administration and students' clubs.

• Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman