Lanzhou Jiaotong University

Lanzhou Jiaotong University was founded in 1958 from departments of Tangshan Railway Institute, now Southwest Jiaotong University, and Beijing Railway Institute, now Beijing Jiaotong University. It was China’s third railway university. It is jointly developed through arrangements involving China State Railway Group Co., Ltd., the National Railway Administration and the Gansu Provincial People’s Government. It is an authorized partner for developing the Confucius Institute at the University of Seville in Spain, a university supported by the Ministry of Education’s “Central and Western China Education Revitalization Plan,” a participant in its Excellent Engineer Education and Training Program, a Ministry of Education demonstration university for deepening innovation and entrepreneurship education reform, and a Gansu high-level university and first-class discipline development institution. Under a Ministry of Education-approved “three-to-one” support arrangement, it receives targeted assistance from Tianjin University, Beijing Jiaotong University and Southwest Jiaotong University. It is a Ministry of Education Demonstration Base for Studying in China and has numerous training bases, including a National Language and Writing Promotion Base, National Railway Science Popularization Base, National BeiDou Science Popularization Base, Ministry of Education Cultural Heritage Base and Northwestern China Less Commonly Taught Languages Training Base.

History

Its predecessors can be traced to the Imperial Chinese Railway College established in Shanhaiguan in 1896 and the Beijing Railway Management Training Institute established in 1909. In 1958, the Ministry of Railways decided to establish Lanzhou Railway Institute as China’s third undergraduate railway institution. Five departments—railway transportation, railway electrical machinery, railway construction, railway bridges and tunnels, and railway machinery—with 7 undergraduate and 5 junior-college programs were transferred as complete units to Lanzhou from Beijing Railway Institute, formerly the Beijing Railway Management Training Institute and now Beijing Jiaotong University, and Tangshan Railway Institute, formerly the Imperial Chinese Railway College in Shanhaiguan and now Southwest Jiaotong University. Over 340 experts and scholars from the two institutions, represented by Lin Damei, Shen Zhiyang, Hu Chunnong, Sun Qiyin and Zhang Dianzhi, came to teach in Lanzhou. The university successfully admitted 446 new students that year. In the 1960s, a group of specialists holding Soviet Candidate of Sciences degrees and postgraduate qualifications were assigned to strengthen the faculty. In the difficult environment of northwestern China, these older-generation educators led students from across the country with an unwavering commitment and persistent pursuit. Their wisdom and affection in building, loving and bringing honor to the university opened its first sixty-year cycle. In 2000, it adopted a system of “joint central-local development, with local government taking the principal management role.” In 2003, Lanzhou Railway Institute was renamed Lanzhou Jiaotong University. Inheriting the traditions of its Beijing and Tangshan predecessors and rooted in the Northwest, it has followed a distinctive rail-centered educational path and become a cradle of Chinese railway engineers. It has achieved notable results in talent cultivation, research, social service, cultural inheritance and innovation, and international exchanges, earning a strong reputation. It has developed into a nationally renowned university with a distinctive industry identity, strong local service capabilities and an irreplaceable role in rail transportation development in northwestern China.

Scale

The university has 2 campuses covering 1405 mu, with approximately 879500 square meters of buildings and 2.09 million library books. It has 20 directly affiliated schools or departments and 1 National University Science Park. It has 30437 full-time students, including 22102 undergraduates, 7587 master’s students, of whom 915 are part-time, 496 doctoral students, 212 international students and 804 higher vocational students.

It has 2279 faculty and staff, including 1838 full-time teachers, 322 professors, 703 associate professors and 916 doctorate-holding teachers. Its personnel include 2 jointly appointed academicians; 2 distinguished professors and 1 young scholar under the Changjiang Scholars Program; 3 leading innovation talents and 1 top young talent under the National Special Support Program for High-Level Talent; 1 national Hundred, Thousand and Ten Thousand Talents Project selectee; and 5 Ministry of Education New Century Excellent Talents. It has recruited 6 Changjiang distinguished professors and 6 National Distinguished Young Scholars Fund recipients through flexible appointments. It has 9 Gansu top leading talents, 44 Gansu leading talents, 16 Longyuan young talents and 49 members of the Feitian Scholars Distinguished Appointment Program. Its more than 380 high-level talents of various kinds include recipients of the National May 1 Labor Medal, National Outstanding Teachers, National Model Teachers, Zhan Tianyou Railway Science and Technology Awards and Mao Yisheng Railway Science and Technology Awards.

Disciplines and programs

The university has 66 undergraduate programs, of which 63 admit students, in 33 program categories. In 2023, it received 4 second prizes in the National Teaching Achievement Awards, leading 2 and participating in 2. It has 1 national teaching team, 1 national Huang Danian-style university teaching team, 4 national experimental teaching demonstration centers, 1 national virtual simulation experimental teaching center, 11 national engineering practice education centers, 25 provincial teaching teams and 16 provincial experimental teaching demonstration centers. It has 27 national first-class undergraduate program development sites, 6 national distinctive programs, 10 provincial first-class program development sites, 1 national comprehensive undergraduate program reform pilot, 22 national first-class courses and 3 national quality courses. It has 1 national experimental zone for innovative talent training, and 15 programs have passed engineering education accreditation or assessment.

Drawing on provincial first-class disciplines and national first-class program development sites, it offers distinctive classes such as Zhan Tianyou Classes, Mao Yisheng Classes and Excellent Engineer Training Program classes in strong subjects including civil engineering, transportation, vehicle engineering, and rail transportation signaling and control. Its Geographic Information Science Top Students in Basic Disciplines Training Base is one of Gansu’s ten existing provincial bases for training top students in basic disciplines.

With its railway industry foundation, the university has clear comparative strengths nationally in transportation engineering, civil engineering, environmental science and engineering, mechanical engineering, surveying and mapping science and technology, electrical engineering, and information and communication engineering. It covers 8 disciplinary categories. Engineering, chemistry, materials science, and environment and ecology rank in the global ESI top 1%. It has 5 postdoctoral research stations, 7 first-level doctoral degree authorizations, including electrical engineering added in 2024, 1 professional doctoral degree authorization in resources and environment added in 2024, 28 first-level master’s degree authorizations and 16 professional master’s degree authorizations. Six disciplines were selected for Gansu’s “Double First-Class” Distinctive Development Project, and it has 24 provincial key disciplines. In the Ministry of Education’s fourth discipline evaluation, transportation engineering, civil engineering, and environmental science and engineering were rated Category B, and mechanical engineering B-. Transportation engineering was selected for the “National First-Class Discipline Breakthrough Project for Gansu Provincial Universities.” In 2024, its 28 first-level disciplines continued to improve in ShanghaiRanking’s subject rankings, with civil engineering, mechanical engineering, surveying and mapping science and technology, transportation engineering, and control science and engineering appearing in the rankings, within the national top 50%.

Talent cultivation

The university uses Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era to guide education. It steadily builds a distinctive Jiaotong “six-in-one” comprehensive ideological and political course system, advances comprehensive talent training reform in “all-person, whole-process and all-round education” and the simultaneous development of five areas of education, and conducts the “seven visits and one in-depth engagement” activity for leading officials. It prioritizes counselor development and works jointly to promote students’ all-round development.

It has always upheld the Jiaotong tradition of “rigorous scholarship and strict standards.” It focuses on training high-level professionals with solid foundations, broad knowledge, strong abilities, high personal qualities, innovative minds and international perspectives. Since its founding, it has supplied the country and society with over 200000 outstanding graduates, becoming an important training base for railway transportation and engineering talent in western China. Its graduate destination placement rate has consistently ranked among the leading provincial universities. Over the past three years, approximately 40% of graduates signing employment contracts entered rail transportation; 65.20% joined state-owned enterprises; 47.21% joined Fortune Global 500 companies; and 69.02% took jobs outside Gansu. Employer satisfaction with its graduates reached 98.7%. It has received the titles “National Advanced Collective in Graduate Employment at Regular Higher Education Institutions” and “One of 50 National Universities with Exemplary Graduate Employment Practices.” It has trained many outstanding people, represented by Chinese Academy of Sciences academician Lai Yuanming, and made major contributions to China’s rail transportation and local economic development.

Research

The university consistently pursues industry-university-research cooperation and actively serves national and local economic development. It has developed core technologies and strong industrial capabilities in civil structures, environmental protection, information engineering, automatic control, intelligent transportation, logistics management, equipment manufacturing, green energy and natural disaster prevention. Some research has reached advanced international and first-class domestic standards. It has participated in research and construction for major railways including Qinghai-Tibet, Lanzhou-Xinjiang and Lanzhou-Chongqing. It was the earliest university in China to undertake Qinghai-Tibet Railway research, solved the globally challenging problem of permafrost on that railway and received a special prize in the National Science and Technology Progress Awards. It has 4 Ministry of Education Changjiang Scholars innovation teams, including one studying the durability of materials and structures in arid and cold northwestern regions. Its 3 national research platforms are the National Engineering Technology Research Center for Green Coating Technology and Equipment, the National-Local Joint Engineering Research Center for Disaster Prevention Technology in Road and Bridge Engineering, and the National-Local Joint Engineering Research Center for Applications of Geographic National Conditions Monitoring Technology. It has 2 Ministry of Education key laboratories, in optoelectronic technology and intelligent control and in thermal engineering of railway vehicles, and 1 provincial-ministerial jointly developed collaborative innovation center for key technologies and equipment in the concentrating solar thermal industry. It has 14 provincial or ministerial key laboratories, including the Railway Key Laboratory of BIM and Intelligent Applications for Railway Communication, Signaling, Power Supply and Electrification; the Railway Industry Key Laboratory of Intelligent Management and Control of Plateau Railway Transportation; Gansu Rail Transportation Research Center; Gansu Key Laboratory of Yellow River Water Environment; and Gansu Key Laboratory of Surveying and Mapping Science and Technology. It has 5 provincial research institutes, including the Northwestern Transportation Infrastructure Renewal and Intelligent Industry Research Institute and Gansu Yellow River Basin Ecological Protection Industry Research Institute. Its total research platforms at provincial or ministerial level and above number 83. In 2025, the international Journal of Geovisualization and Spatial Analysis (JGSA) was formally placed in the Earth Sciences Category 1 of the Chinese Academy of Sciences National Science Library’s Journal Ranking Table and rated a Top journal.

Over the past five years, it has undertaken 2791 government- and externally commissioned research projects and received 151 scientific achievement awards at provincial or ministerial level and above. These include 1 second prize in the National Science and Technology Progress Awards, 10 first prizes in the Gansu Science and Technology Progress Awards, 1 first prize in the 16th Gansu Philosophy and Social Science Achievement Awards, 1 special prize in the China Railway Society Science and Technology Awards and 1 first prize in the National Surveying and Mapping Science and Technology Progress Awards. It has signed 41 industry-university-research cooperation agreements with local governments and enterprises. Its university science park hosts 158 companies, including 51 incubated startups. In 2024, park companies’ total output reached RMB 350 million, with profits and taxes of RMB 26.7499 million.

External exchanges and cooperation

The university actively conducts external exchanges and cooperation. It has long-term partnerships with over 60 higher education institutions in more than 30 countries and regions, including the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, Canada, Japan, Spain and Brazil. In 2021, the Chinese International Education Foundation authorized it to jointly establish a Confucius Institute with Spain’s University of Seville, which has a 500-year history. It became the first university in Gansu to co-establish a Confucius Institute in a developed country. It actively serves the Belt and Road Initiative and the strategy of building a strong transportation nation. It is a member of the Belt and Road University Strategic Alliance and the Association of Sino-Russian Transport Universities, with in-depth cooperation and exchanges with countries and universities along the Belt and Road, including Russia, North Macedonia, Kazakhstan and Laos. It actively educates international students at every level, from Chinese language preparatory study to undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programs, and also admits overseas postdoctoral researchers. It has trained over 2000 international professionals in transportation, information and infrastructure development for more than 60 Belt and Road countries.

Development goals

In January 2023, the university held its 12th Party congress and proposed its “1152” development goals. These comprise one overall goal: becoming “a high-level university with stronger regional advantages and more distinctive industry characteristics”; one new breakthrough: the “National First-Class Transportation Engineering Discipline Breakthrough Project”; five improvements: talent cultivation, scientific innovation and social service, international education, faculty development, and educational facilities; and two new centers of excellence: “a national center for cultivating technological innovation talent in rail transportation” and “a western China R&D and innovation center for high-speed railway service safety and intelligent operation and maintenance.” The university will seize major strategic opportunities in building a strong transportation nation and Gansu’s development as a pioneering area for reform to revitalize higher education in central and western China in the new era. It will fulfill the fundamental task of fostering virtue and educating people and uphold its ethos of “Striving Upward, Hard Work and Plain Living, Diligent Research and Rigorous Scholarship” and its motto “Virtue, Aspiration, Broad Learning and Diligent Action.” Advancing with determination and courage toward its “1152” goals, it will pursue the development of a high-level university with strong regional advantages and distinctive industry characteristics, contributing further to building a great modern socialist country and a happy and beautiful new Gansu in the new era!