History & Today

Tianjin has a long history and rich culture, which form lots of tourist attractions, including “Tianjin Eye”, “Haihe River Scenery”, “Ancient Culture Street”, “Italian Scenery Area”, “Five Avenues”, “Tianjin Museum”, “Binjiang Road”, etc. Besides, there is another place where you can feel the traditional Chinese culture------Teahouse. You can have tea and chat with your friends here. What’s more important, you can listen to cross talks and relax yourself.

Historically speaking, there always stands a closely-knitted tie between Tianjin and Beijing. When the Mongolian people in the 13th century established their capital in Beijing, Tianjin occupied a significant position in terms of grain storage. With the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal functioning soundly, Tianjin stands at the crossroad to link the inland ports and the waterways. By the 15th century, Tianjin had grown into a walled fortress garrison.

In modern history, Tianjin ranks among the cities to have firstly received the western influence. In 1860, the City excelled itself as a trading port, and Wudadao of Tanjin (which refers to an area in Heping District composed mainly of five avenues, namely, Chongqing Dao, Dali Dao, Changde Dao, Munan Dao and Machang Dao) are lined with a rich variety of western-style architectural buildings. After the liberation in 1911 when the last emperor of the Qing dynasty to abdicate. Tianjin is well-known for its nickname of “the back garden of the political China”.

Several former presidents and prime ministers of the Republic of China and quite a few revolutionary pioneers once settled down in here. Each residence they lived in as their home is a record telling an episode full of stories on China’s modern history, all of which has transformed into an abundant collection of tourist resources, centering around the theme of “Learning about Modern China via Tianjin”.

Tianjin University of Science and Technology (TUST), situated beside the Bohai Sea and neighboring the Haihe River, is jointly constructed by the central government of China and the municipal government of Tianjin. As a key university supported by Tianjin Municipal Government, it is equipped with a well-balanced supply of disciplines diversified in engineering, science, arts, economics, management and law with engineering at its core. Having started in 1958 as Hebei Institute of Light Industry, it developed into TUST in 2002. Currently, with its nearly 27,000 full-time students enrolled for different academic degrees, TUST comprises 18 different schools and 1 department offering 62 bachelor programs, 18 first-level master degree programs, 6 professional master degree programs and 4 first-level doctor degree programs.

Integrated by three campuses, namely, Hexi campus, TEDA campus and Tanggu campus, TUST covers an area of over 1.533 million square meters with a total construction area of 893,000 square meters. Its library houses nearly 1.9 million books and the equipment for teaching and research is worth 690 million yuan in total value. Besides, the campus is equipped with accessible stadiums designed for special training, advanced networks and facilities needed to live an easily convenient life. And the Foreign Students’ Apartment is well-equipped and well-furnished.

TUST boasts of 1 key discipline named “Fermentation Engineering” and 3 first-class disciplines in Tianjin, 7 discipline groups with special feature. Drawing upon these key disciplines, TUST has developed many a leading specialties of special feature nationwide, such as Biology Fermentation, Food Science and Engineering, Engineering of Pulp and Paper Making, Marine Science, Chemical Engineering, Packaging Engineering, and Polymer Material Engineering, etc.

So far, TUST has built up the following important research centers and labs: 1 The State key Laboratory (Food Nutrition and Safety), 1 National Engineering Laboratory (the united engineering laboratory of Metabolic Control Fermentation Technology supported both locally and nationally), 2 Key Labs of MOE (one of Food Nutrition and Safety, and the other of Industry Fermentation Micro-biology), 1 Research Center of MOE (Food Biology Technology Engineering), 1 Sino-French Joint Laboratory on Food Nutrition and Safety and Pharmacochemistry in collaboration with the National Pharmacy Institute of France and the University of Paris VI.

A team of 1997 working staff constitute the whole faculty, among which 1302 serve as full time teachers. This well-organized team is endowed with academic competence and innovative willingness to support the further development of TUST. Adhering to the motto of “For Virtue, Knowledge and Practice We Feel Deep Reverence; To Our Nation, Campus and Fellowman We Find Easy Attachment”, TUST takes the quality of education as its very lifeline by stressing personality and morality other than knowledge.

TUST pays high attention to scientific researches, so it has consecutively won 8 national and 97 provincial awards since 12th5 year Plan. More and more research projects are constantly granted to TUST, some of which have marked very important breakthroughs, such as the Preeminent Youth Fund Projects of the Natural Sciences Foundation, the Key Projects of the Natural Sciences Foundation, the Projects of National Social Sciences Foundation, the International (Regional) Projects of the Natural Sciences Foundation, the National Science and Technology Planning Projects Led by Chief Scientists. Since the technological platforms continue to make a splash, the scientific research platforms above the provincial level have amounted up to 33.

With the development of the international cooperation, TUST has hosted over 30 academic meetings for international exchanges and foreign experts have been invited to give more than 200 lectures. Noticeably, in 2014 it has hosted the Young Scientists Forum of Summer Davos in Tianjin with great success.

What’s more, TUST has also signed with 6 districts and 1 county of Tianjin a strategic agreement of comprehensive technological cooperation, and has forged with 280 companies a technological link. Besides, TUST has maintained a close technological cooperation with 15 provinces and autonomous regions, such as Hebei, Qinghai, Jiangxi, Hainan, Yunnan, Inner Mongolia, Fujian and Shanxi, and in 2014 has been among the first members of “Industry-University-Research Alliance of Shijiazhuang with Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province Together”.

TUST cherishes the idea of being an open educational institution with global reach. So, cooperative ties for international exchanges have been strengthened to more than 80 universities and research institutes in more than 30 countries, such as USA, Japan, Australia, Canada, Germany, Sweden and Finland largely in the form of regular scientific research cooperation and students exchange programs.

And great importance is attached by TUST to international cooperation in running school programs. On the one hand, based on the Sino-American project, cooperative projects cosponsored by TUST and Australia, Japan and the UK follows in accordance with agreements signed to co-produce talents with California University and University of Georgia in USA, Ottawa University in Canada, Nagasaki University in Japan and University of Lodz in Poland, etc. mainly in the format of “one plus two plus one”, “two plus two” and “three plus two”; on the other hand, substantial exchanges in scientific research and students have been achieved with such foreign universities as University of New Brunswick in Canada, University of Sydney in Australia and Lappeenranta University of Technology in Finland, etc.

Following the inevitable tendency to go international, undergraduates and postgraduates with a nice academic record at TUST　are sorted out and sent to these universities on a yearly basis for a learning visit, and the number of students who have participated in these programs until now has almost amounted to a thousand. This experience has broadened their horizons to a great extent. Meanwhile, TUST welcomed over 600 foreign experts and scholars to give lectures on our campus. In 2009, TUST found itself among the educational institutions to receive foreign students financed by the Government Scholarship of China , and since has offered a complete program of foreign students education ranging from language teaching to diploma education encompassing the three levels of bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and the doctoral degree. Supported by the courses lectured in English in the School of Economics and Management, the MBA program and courses regarding economics and management for international exchanges students is offered. And annually regular exchanges and learning projects with Monterey Industrial University in Mexico, Ngee Ann Polytechnic in Singapore, Irkutsk National Transport University in Russia, University of Georgia in USA, Dutchess Community College in USA have since 2001 brought TUST over 3,000 foreign students from more than 80 countries for long or short international exchanges.

Approved in 2014 by Hanban (Office of Chinese Language Council International), a Confucius Institute co-built by TUST and Assumption University of Thailand started to help Chinese language go international.