Jingdezhen Ceramic University

The university has three campuses—Xinchang, Ceramic Research Institute and Xianghu—covering over 1600 mu. Its 10 teaching schools or departments are Materials Science and Engineering, Ceramic Art, Design Art, Art and Cultural Heritage, Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Management and Economics, Information Engineering, Foreign Languages, Marxism, and Physical Education and Military Teaching. It also has a graduate school, an international college, a college of entrepreneurship, a college of continuing education and 1 independent college, the College of Technology and Art. It has over 19000 full-time undergraduate-and-above students, including the independent college, with 40 doctoral students, 1035 master’s students and nearly one hundred international students. It has established a complete undergraduate, master’s and doctoral education system. It has 802 full-time teachers, including 450 with senior titles and 202 doctorate holders. Over 50 high-level talents include a member of the State Council Academic Degrees Committee’s design disciplinary appraisal group, Distinguished Young Scholars Fund recipients, national selectees of the “New Century Hundred, Thousand and Ten Thousand Talents Project” and experts receiving State Council special government allowances. It has 26 national arts masters of various kinds and nearly 200 provincial experts and talents.

It offers 48 undergraduate programs, 2 first-level doctoral disciplines, 13 first-level master’s disciplines covering 51 second-level disciplines, and 5 professional master’s degree authorizations. These span 10 disciplinary categories, including engineering, arts, management, literature, science and history. In structuring its disciplines and programs, it gives equal emphasis to art and engineering and integrates art, engineering and business, highlighting its strengths in design art and ceramic engineering. It has 5 provincial key disciplines, including 2 provincial high-level disciplines. It has developed three strong, distinctive discipline clusters: “art design and ceramic culture,” “ceramic materials engineering and mechanical-electrical engineering,” and “ceramic economics and management.” It carefully trains high-level specialists across the entire industry chain, from ceramic materials and product design to management. In the Ministry of Education’s third discipline evaluation, design ranked 6th nationally, fine arts 9th and materials science and engineering 16th, showing clear disciplinary strengths. In 2016, design became one of the first lead disciplines in the Jiangxi University Discipline Alliance. Its arts-category undergraduate programs admit students in the early admissions batch. Its two distinctive programs, inorganic non-metallic materials engineering and mechanical design, manufacturing and automation, admit students in the first undergraduate batch.

Among Jiangxi universities, it has a long educational history, a deep industry background and distinctive disciplines. It was selected as one of China’s most distinctive universities, the only one in Jiangxi, to attend the Ministry of Education’s “21st-Century Chinese Universities Exhibition” in Russia. It has repeatedly presented state gifts to foreign dignitaries on behalf of the Chinese government and enjoys a strong international reputation. It began admitting international students in 1958 and has trained over 3000 from more than 20 countries across the continents over nearly 60 years. It has friendly partnerships with over 30 universities in countries and regions including the United States, United Kingdom, France, Japan and South Korea, and with organizations such as the International Academy of Ceramics. Partnerships involve reciprocal faculty lectures, student study visits and joint training of artists. It actively develops international ceramic artist studios. The “JCI-WVU International Ceramic Artists Studio” project was described in the U.S. Department of State publication 200 Years of U.S.-China Relations as “a model and a new high point in people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States.” With partner institutions Wonkwang University and Dankook University in South Korea, it launched a “3+1+2” cooperative education project, creating a connected pathway for joint undergraduate, master’s and doctoral education. In 2016, its first overseas ceramic culture research center, the “Korea-Jingdezhen Ceramic University International Ceramic Culture Exchange Center,” was inaugurated.

In recent years, responding to global trends in ceramic art and drawing on Jingdezhen’s profound ceramic heritage, the university has hosted over 10 international symposia on ceramic engineering, art, culture and education. In the most recent two years in particular, it has actively engaged with the Belt and Road strategy. It successfully hosted internationally influential academic events including the Jingdezhen Ceramics and Belt and Road Strategy International Symposium on “Maritime Silk Road—Ceramic Road” and “Imperial Kilns and Ceramic Art”; the China (Jingdezhen) International Forum on High-Tech Ceramics and the 9th Asian Symposium on Ceramic Materials; the 3rd International Symposium on Design Art in Central China; and a series of ISCAEE international education exchange activities. Over 200 overseas experts attended, strongly advancing the international development of ceramic technology, culture and art. Representing China, the university has held exhibitions of teachers’ and students’ ceramic art at major venues including UNESCO headquarters, the Louvre in France, the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, the Museum of Asian Art in Greece and the Grand Palais in France. These have showcased its outstanding achievements in ceramic art education and creation and greatly promoted Chinese ceramic culture and art worldwide.