According to a recent national discipline assessment report in 2012, issued by China Academic Degrees & Graduate Education Development Center, China’s Ministry of Education, four disciplines of Jiangnan University (JU) were ranked within top 5 nationally, of which Food science and Technology was ranked NO.1 with the same result of the last discipline assessment in 2009, Light Industry Technology NO.2, Design tied NO.4, and Textile and Engineering NO. 5. In addition, Chemical Technology was ranked tied NO.19, among top 28 percent nationally, and Control Science and Engineering NO.27, among top 33 percent nationally. JU’s 18 first-level disciplines including 5 first-level doctoral disciplines, 11 first-level master disciplines and 2 second-level master disciplines took part in this assessment.

Based onDegree-Conferring and Talent Training Discipline Catalog, jointly published by Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council and China’s Ministry of Education, the National Discipline Assessment is characterized with the model of focusing on objective evaluation and taking full consideration of the subjective evaluation.

The assessment was regulated to pass the following stages:

I. Data Collecting: Collecting the public data issued by the related governmental departments and authoritative social organizations, and the data on relative disciplines submitted by the participating institutions;

II. Data Checking: Publishing the relative data for public checking;

III. Subjective-evaluating: Introducing experts of certain areas, officials from governmental departments and entrepreneurs to the subjective evaluation;

IV. Results Shape-taking: Embracing the advanced evaluation model, analyzing and figuring out the final results.

The one-year-lasting assessment, covering 95 first-level disciplines, is by far the most authoritative discipline assessment for China’s higher institutions, attracting the most disciplines participated totaling 4,235 ones from 391 higher intuitions nationwide.

JU, through this assessment, further enhanced the leading status in the distinctive disciplines and laid a solid foundation for the future development of JU on the whole.