Shanghai University, commonly referred to as SHU, or colloquially Shangda (Chinese: 上大; pinyin: Shàngdà), is a public research university located in Shanghai. The 555-acre main Baoshan campus is situated in the north of Shanghai, and there are two other campuses in Jiading and Jing’an. It is co-funded by Chinese Ministry of Education and Shanghai Municipal Government as part of the Project 211 and the Double First Class University Plan for leading national universities.
Jointly founded by the Nationalists and the Communists in 1922, the original cause for the Shanghai University was to nurture leaders for the Chinese revolution. It contributed a group of influential people to the cause of Chinese liberation and development. The university was discontinued in 1927 as a consequence of the Shanghai Massacre, in which the Nationalists purged all communist-related organizations. In 1983, the Chinese government reopened Shanghai University. And then in 1994, by integrating three other universities, it became the largest higher learning institution run by Shanghai Municipality.[4][5] As of 2018, SHU enrolls 19,934 undergraduate and 16,954 postgraduate students, including 4,505 international students.
Shanghai University’s annual research funds stood at US$505.3 million in 2018, making it a comprehensive research-intensive university. It has two undergraduate colleges and five broad academic divisions (Natural Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences, Engineering, Economics and Management, and Fine Arts), which contain 29 schools or departments.
In the 2021 Academic Ranking of World Universities, the SHU ranked 294th worldwide and 35th in China. And in the 2021QS World University Rankings, the SHU ranked 387th and 16th, respectively. The university was also ranked 51-60 globally and 1st in China in the global young university rankings, according to the 2020 QS Top 50 Under 50. In the 2017 Ministry of Education “Chinese University Subject Rankings”, the disciplines of Social Sciences, Fine Arts, and Theoretical and Applied Mechanics ranked in the top 10% of all Chinese universities; the disciplines of Mathematics, Drama and Film Studies, Mechanical Engineering, News and Communications, and Material Science and Engineering ranked in the top 20% of all Chinese universities.