Guangdong Polytechnic Normal University (GPNU), founded in 1957 as Guangdong Institute for Nationalities, is a provincial higher education institution. It began granting master's degrees in 2006 and, in 2021, became a designated institution for doctoral degree programs.
Located in Guangzhou, the provincial capital of Guangdong and the heart of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, GPNU operates five campuses: four in Guangzhou and one in Heyuan City.
GPNU prides itself on a rich academic heritage and a steadfast commitment to excellence in teaching and research. Guided by its mission to foster the high-quality development of vocational education and promote technological self-reliance, the university is focused on achieving distinction in three core disciplines: Ethnology, Education, and Control Science and Engineering. Additionally, it aspires to secure a position within the top 1% globally in the ESI engineering rankings.
The university's academic offerings span nine major fields: Economics, Law, Education, Literature, Science, Engineering, Management, Art, and History. It is distinguished by five provincial key disciplines: Ethnology, Education, Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature, Control Science and Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering as well as three "Pearl River Scholar Disciplines": Communication and Information Systems, and Pattern Recognition and Intelligent Systems, Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature. Through these efforts, GPNU continues to strengthen its reputation as a leading institution in both academic and research excellence.
GPNU offers six master's degree programs in research-oriented fields: Education, Ethnology, Control Science and Engineering, Journalism and Communication, History and Party Building of the Communist Party of China, and Physics. Additionally, the university provides nine professional degree programs in areas such as Education, Electronic Information, Mechanical Engineering, Energy and Power, Accounting, Journalism and Communication, Applied Psychology, Transportation, and Design. With 26 teaching units and 75 undergraduate majors-comprising 37 in science and engineering, 38 in humanities, and 36 in teacher education. GPNU currently enrolls over 32,000 undergraduate students and more than 2,140 full-time graduate students.
For international students, the university offers six English-medium programs: 1 master’s program (Education) and 5 bachelor’s programs (Computer Science and Technology, International Business, International Economics and trade, Business Administration, and Finance). Over 3000 students from more than fifty countries have graduated from GPNU.
GPNU is one of the most important teacher training centers for vocational education in China. In the last decade, it has cooperated with institutions of higher education in Singapore, Finland, Germany, the UK, the US, Australia and New Zealand in various training programs.
The University is home to quite a few research centers: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Intellectual Property & Big Data, Center for Ethnic Studies, Research Institute for Vocational Education, Cross-Disciplinary Research Institute, etc.
GPNU attaches great importance to international exchanges and cooperation. In the last decade, over 200 teachers have been sent abroad for training or academic research. It has established partnership with over 30 universities in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand, Japan and so on. By signing articulation agreements, it now has “3+1”, “2+2” and “3+2” dual degree cooperation with the University of Newcastle in Australia, the Emporia State University in the US, the University of Northampton in the UK, Fukuyama University in Japan, etc. Students are encouraged to join in the exchange programs.
