Yunnan Minzu University

Yunnan Minzu University is a comprehensive university training highly qualified professionals from all ethnic groups. It is a provincial key university jointly supported by the Ministry of Education, the National Ethnic Affairs Commission and the Yunnan Provincial People’s Government. Located in scenic Kunming, China, where the weather feels like spring all year, it was founded on August 1, 1951 as Yunnan Institute for Nationalities. It was one of the earliest ethnic higher education institutions established in the People’s Republic of China and was renamed Yunnan Minzu University in April 2003.

After more than 60 years of development, it has become a comprehensive university with a full range of disciplines and distinctive educational characteristics. It covers 10 categories: philosophy, economics, law, education, literature, history, science, engineering, management and art. Its strengths include ethnology, sociology, history, ethnic languages and literatures, Southeast and South Asian languages and cultures, ethnic medicine, ethnic arts and ethnic sports. It gives equal emphasis to humanities and sciences and coordinates development across disciplines and programs. It has 1 postdoctoral research station, 2 first-level doctoral degree fields, 1 jointly offered doctoral field, 12 first-level master’s degree fields, 96 second-level master’s degree fields, 9 professional master’s degree fields, and 94 undergraduate programs. It has 14 provincial key or advantageous and distinctive disciplines, 8 nationally distinctive programs and 25 provincial advantageous and distinctive programs.

It has 37140 students of various categories, including 21760 undergraduates, 2343 master’s students, 26 doctoral students and 510 international students, as well as 12148 adult undergraduate and junior college students. It has 1566 faculty and staff, including 189 professors and 347 associate professors. It covers 2550 mu, with a building floor area of 750000 square meters. It has 26 schools and departments and operates an affiliated secondary school and primary school. It has 1 provincial research institution, the Yunnan Institute of Ethnic Studies, and 1 ethnic museum holding nearly 20000 cultural relics. It has developed distinctive and influential research institutions including the Institute for Ethnic Unity and Progress, the Institute for the South and Southeast Asia Outreach Center, the Institute for Poverty Alleviation and Development and Poverty Alleviation Big Data Center, and the Yunnan Center for Tibetan Studies. It has 6 academician and expert workstations and 1 provincial collaborative innovation center, the Yunnan 2011 Collaborative Innovation Center for the Theory and Practice of Ethnic Unity and Progress. It emphasizes research and has achieved notable results in ethnology, sociology and history. It has repeatedly received national outstanding teaching achievement and research awards and provincial teaching and research achievement awards. Some research findings were forwarded by the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee to members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau for reference. Outstanding theoretical contributions such as “Direct Transition,” “Peaceful Reform,” the Five Series on Ethnic Issues, the ethnic affairs volume of the Dictionary of Chinese History, and volume three of the General History of Chinese Culture have provided important evidence for Party and national ethnic policies and solutions to ethnic issues and made historic contributions to the development of ethnic theory.

It values external cooperation and exchange. Since its founding, it has received more than 20000 visits from heads of state, political leaders, experts, scholars and international friends from over 80 countries and regions. Visitors have included Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, former US Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger, King Harald V of Norway and President Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam, making it one of China’s universities most favored by visiting foreign dignitaries. It was among Yunnan’s earliest universities to admit international students and teach Chinese as a foreign language. It began admitting foreign students in 1981 and overseas master’s students in 1992. It has partnerships with more than 70 universities or academic institutions in over 10 countries, including the United States, Norway, Japan and South Korea.

It consistently upholds the spirit of “Unity and Progress” and regards serving the border region and ethnic unity, prosperity and development as its responsibility. It has educated more than 100000 highly qualified professionals. Many of the first generation of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree holders, experts and scholars among Yunnan’s 25 long-established ethnic minorities were educated here. Most ethnic minority cadres in the province’s 16 prefectures and cities and 129 counties, particularly its 29 ethnic autonomous counties, graduated from the university. It has become a cradle for high-level, high-quality professionals from China’s ethnic groups, particularly in the southwest; an important base for studying ethnic issues and relations; and an important window for national and Yunnan opening-up. In 1999, 2005 and 2009, the State Council named it a National Model Institution for Ethnic Unity and Progress. In 2016, it was named a National Demonstration Institution for Ethnic Unity and Progress Activities.

As time passes and achievements accumulate, it will continue to uphold its ethnic, border-region and international positioning, place greater emphasis on internal quality development, and explore and establish a modern university system. It will develop bases for training ethnic minority talent, inheriting ethnic cultures, studying ethnic arts, and researching and consulting on ethnic theory and policy. Rooted in Yunnan, oriented toward the nation and reaching Southeast and South Asia, it will continue to serve ethnic minorities and ethnic regions, the Party and nation’s ethnic affairs work, and national strategic needs, advancing toward becoming an internationally renowned, distinctive and high-level ethnic university.

May 2017