Located in Beijing, the national capital of China, Renmin University of China (RUC) is a key comprehensive and research-orientated university, and also one of the most prestigious universities in the humanities and social sciences in China’s higher education. RUC was established in 1937 during the resistance war against Japanese aggression. The University acquired its present name on October 3, 1950, which made it the first university to be established by the newly founded People's Republic of China.

RUC now comprises 22 schools of different disciplines, 14 inter-disciplinary research centres, 16 transitional centers for post-doctoral fellows, and also School of Continuing Education, School of Education and Training, the Shenzhen Research Institute, and International College (Suzhou Research Institute). RUC is now authorized to offer bachelor's degrees in 65 areas, and double degree in 8 areas. RUC has 158 Masters programmes and 104 Ph.D. programmes.

For now, RUC ranks first at least in the following areas among all universities in China in the humanities and social sciences area:

According to the Ministry of Education’s appraisal release of 2009, 7 disciplines of the university, namely Applied Economics, Theoretical Economics, Law, Political Science, Sociology, Journalism & Communication and Marxism Studies have been ranked No.1 nationwide, Philosophy and Library Information and Archive Management No.2 and Business Administration No.3. These remarkable data has once again proved the leadership of Renmin in humanities and social sciences of Chinese higher education.

RUC’s renowned scholars of past generations have continuously striven to pave a solid foundation for the construction and development of disciplines, in education and training, and for furthering research. At present, RUC has a large group of well-known leading scholars who are highly regarded both in China and overseas. A highly qualified and well structured teaching and research body has been formed. As of October 2009, RUC has a faculty of 1759 which includes 504 professors and 606 associate professors. In addition, since 1979, more than 500 eminent scholars from overseas have served as long term faculty at RUC as honorary professors, resident professors, or part-time professors.

At 2009, RUC reached an enrollment of 22,856 full-time students, including 10,852 undergraduate students, 9,834 postgraduate students, 1,578 international students and 592 other students. In addition, RUC also has an enrollment of 3,650 master students of single diploma, 12,852 students of adult education, and 42,815 online learning students.

Since 2001, RUC has received nearly 200 provincial or ministerial research awards. RUC ranks No.1 regarding to the whole amount of projects secured from the National Social Sciences Foundation or the Key Projects on National Strategy in Humanities and Social Sciences from the Ministry of Education. RUC again ranks first among all universities in China with respect to the total yearly number of articles published in CSSCI(Chinese Social Science Citation Index) journals in the between 2004 to 2008.

RUC has established academic exchange relationships with about 189 universities from 49 countries and regions in the world. As of October 2009, RUC has participated in the establishment of 13 overseas Confucius Institutes. From 2009 on, RUC initiated its remarkable international programs like the Summer School, which enrolled nearly 300 international students for the last two years; like the 8 master programs all taught in English, etc.

ABOUT SCHOOL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND POLICY

The School of Public Administration and Policy (SPAP), Renmin University of China was established in June 2001. Now, it has developed its own firm discipline foundation, well organizational structure, dynamic operating mechanisms and efficient service system.

Relying on broad disciplines of Renmin University of China, SPAP offers Ph. D. degrees in 8 areas, MA degrees in 16 areas and BA degrees in 3 areas. It also has MPA programmes and post-doctoral research fellow programmes. Among these degree programmes, public administration, urban economics are national key disciplines, and land and real estate management, educational economics and management are municipal key disciplines.

Up to the September of 2008, the school boasts of 83 full-time faculty members, including 25 professors, 36 associate professors and 22 assistant professors. 93 % of the faculty members are Ph. D. holders and 14.5% of them got their degrees from abroad. The school has 367 undergraduate students, 470 regular full-time graduate students, 162 Ph. D. candidates, 864 part-time MPA students and 58 full-time students.
As one of the earliest schools that provide MPA programmes, we create the principal-professor system for core courses and responsibility-professor system for research direction. We provide the 17 research directions for MPA students, the most in China. In last 7 years, we recruit 2371 MPA candidates, among which 1507 have got their degrees successfully and are working all around the country. In 2007, approved by the Ministry of Education, we became the only school provides full-time MPA programmes in mainland China. 58 students have been recruited into our school in recent two years.

By bringing together the academic disciplines, departments, and institutes that have a focus on public policy and public affairs, the School of Public Administration and Policy aims at developing key disciplines, taking advantages of traditional strengths, and integrating all sorts of resources to promote the development of public administration and public policy.