The Yan'an Road campus of Donghua University in Shanghai's Changning district. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Donghua University (DHU) is a national key university dubbed as "the cradle of talent in the textile industry".

Founded in 1951 following the merger of the textile departments of several universities, including Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Donghua was first called East China Textile Institute of Technology. It was renamed China Textile University in 1985 and Donghua University in 1999.

The university, which consists of three campuses - Songjiang Campus, Yan'an Road Campus and Xinhua Road Campus – has been named a "Shanghai Garden Unit" for its pleasant campus environments.

Donghua University has 18 faculties offering 60 undergraduate programs covering 10 disciplines, including engineering and science, as well as postgraduate and doctoral studies.

The university has one of the best textile science and engineering programs in China. Its biochemistry, biology, engineering, mathematics, materials science, computer science, and environmental science and ecology programs are ranked among the top 1 percent in the world ESI (Essential Science Indicators) ranking.

The university focuses on cultivating high-quality talent who possess strong practical skills, an innovative spirit and a strong sense of social responsibility. It has 14,917 undergraduate, 8,165 postgraduate, and 1,907 doctoral students, as well as 644 international degree students.

The university has 2,225 faculty members, including 1,451 full-time teachers, nearly 1,000 of which hold senior titles, including full-time academicians and recipients of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars.

The employment rate of the university's graduates in recent years has been more than 96 percent, and their salaries have been ranked from the 14th to 18th places in China's college graduate salary index. Furthermore, more than 470 of their students have started their own businesses in the past five years.

Donghua University has established cooperative relations with more than 150 overseas universities and is the founder of the "Belt and Road" World Textile University Union, which includes 37 textile universities from 18 countries.

The university has been included in the "China-Africa 20+20 Cooperation Plan" by the Ministry of Education. It has also launched the world's first Confucius Institute with a focus on textiles at Moi University in Kenya, as well as co-founded the Shanghai International School of Fashion and Creativity with the University of Edinburgh.

(Statistics as of October 2023)

The International Education Center at Donghua University in Shanghai. [Photo/dhu.edu.cn]