The Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA), known colloquially as Nanhang, is an elite university that was founded in 1952 as the Nanjing College of Aviation Industry, and was renamed in 1956 to the Nanjing Aeronautical Institute. It adopted its current name in 1993.
NUAA, which is a Double First Class Discipline University, as issued by the Chinese Ministry of Education, has evolved from a teaching-oriented university to a research-oriented university, with administration from the Commission of National Defense Science, Technology and Industry.
Although most of its courses are in science and engineering, it also offers integrated courses in applied science, management, humanities and social sciences, with aeronautics, civil aviation and astronautics.
It was one of the first Chinese institutions of higher learning to authorise doctoral, master's, and bachelor's degrees.
Nanhang has two main campuses - the Ming Palace Campus on the site of a 14th Century imperial palace during the early Ming dynasty, when Nanjing was the capital of China. The second is the Jiangjun Road campus, located in the Jiangning Economic and Technological Development Zone. These campuses cover an area of 173 hectares with a building floor space of 650,000 square metres.
Nanhang has produced many highly cited scientific papers, including works that have been picked up by Nature INDEX. In 2017, the Kun Drag (Kun Long AG600), designed to be the world’s largest amphibious aircraft, had its first successful flight which was co-developed by the NUAA Innovation Centre.
Notable alumni include Sifeng Liu, a world expert on Grey System Theory and Grey Relational Analysis.
