The University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS; Chinese: 中国科学院大学) is a public university for graduate education, under the direct leadership of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The predecessors of UCAS are the Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (GUCAS) and the Graduate School of the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), which was founded in 1978 as the first graduate school in China by approval of the State Council of China
UCAS produced the first doctoral graduate in science, the first doctoral graduate in engineering, the first female doctoral graduate and the first graduate with double doctoral degrees in China.[2] In 2014, UCAS began to recruit undergraduates. It is a Chinese state Double First Class University. UCAS is a member of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU). UCAS has also founded a Kavli Institute for Theoretical Sciences, China, one of the 20 Kavli institutes across the world.
UCAS ranked 1st globally in Nature Index 2021 Young Universities in Leading 150 Young Universities and ranked 18th in NTU Rankings 2019, placing it 1st in China,. Regarding research output, the Nature Index 2022 ranks the university No.1 in China & the whole of Asia & Oceania region and 4th in the world among the global universities (after Harvard, Stanford, and MIT).
UCAS also ranked 63th in CWUR World University Rankings 2022-2023, placing it 3rd in China only after Tsinghua University and Peking University, and ranked 101-125th in Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings, placing it 8th in China.