Fudan University (FDU) is a public university in Shanghai, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education and is co-funded with the Shanghai Municipal Government. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Construction. The university was originally founded by the Chinese Jesuit priest Ma Xiangbo in 1905. It is a member of the C9 League.

History

The school****'s predecessor was Fudan Pub**lic School************** ()**** founded in**** 1905****,**** by**** the Chinese Jesuit**** priest**** Ma**** Xiangbo.**** It was one of the earliest privately-founded colleges and universities in China. The predecessor of Shanghai Medical University was the Fourth National Sun Yat-sen University School of Medicine founded in 1927. In 2000, Fudan University merged with Shanghai Medical University to form the new Fudan University. In December 2019, Fudan University changed its constitution, removing the phrase "academic independence and freedom of thought" (學術獨立和思想自由) and including a "pledge to follow the Communist party's leadership" (學校堅持中國共產黨的領導), leading to protests among the students. It also said that Fudan University had to "equip its teachers and employees" with "Xi Jinping Thought", leading to concerns about the diminishing academic freedom of Fudan. The university set up a 1 billion yuan fund of funds for start up innovation in 2023 as well as launching what it claims to be China’s largest cloud-based scientific research computing platform CFFF. The Hungarian government made an agreement to open the first campus of Fudan University outside China in Budapest in 2024. The expansion would cost 540 billion HUF, of which 450 billion would be paid by the Hungarian state from a Chinese loan. The construction would be mainly done by Chinese companies. Hungarian education professionals and politicians denounced the investment, citing economics, higher education and national security concerns.

Campus

Fudan has five undergraduate colleges – Zhide (志德), Tengfei (腾飞), Keqing (克卿), Renzhong (任重), and Xide (希德). The university has four campuses in Shanghai – Handan (邯郸), Fenglin (枫林), Zhangjiang (张江), and Jiangwan (江湾) – which share the same central administration. It also has 17 affiliated hospitals.

Academic profile

International links

Fudan has joint MBA programs in the School of Management with MIT Sloan School of Management in the US (since 1996, leading to a Fudan degree), BI Norwegian Business School in Norway (since 1996, leading to a BI Norwegian Business School degree), and the University of Hong Kong in Hong Kong (leading to a University of Hong Kong degree), Washington University in the US (leading to a Washington University degree). There are also a double degree in international management with Bocconi University and Luiss University in Italy (since 2005, leading to a master's in international management from one of the Italian universities), an executive MBA with National Taiwan University, and a global master's in management with London Business School (leading to degrees from both institutions). Fudan University School of Economics has had a partnership with Durham University Business School in England to deliver a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree awarded by Durham University since 2006, with the first students starting in 2007. Fudan remains the main location, but some elements of the course are also delivered at Durham and in San Francisco, USA. Fudan, Korea University Business School in Korea, and the National University of Singapore in Singapore have collaborated on the S3 Asia MBA since 2008, with students spending six months at each of the institutions. Fudan students receive a dual degree from Fudan and one of the other universities in the collaboration.

Reputation and rankings

Subject rankings

Research output rankings

Regarding research output in natural science and life science, the Nature Index Research Leaders 2024 ranked Fudan the No.9 university in the Asia Pacific region, and 12th in the world among the global universities. The 2024 CWTS Leiden Ranking ranked Fudan 11th in the world based on their publications for the time period 2019–2022.

Notable alumni

Since 1952, Fudan University has a total of 95 academicians alumni, second only to Peking University and Tsinghua University in China. Fudan's notable alumni include: