【Historical Development】

Inner Mongolia University is located in Hohhot, the capital city of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and a famous historical city with splendid culture, 400 kilometers far away from Beijing. Inner Mongolia University is the first comprehensive university established in national minority areas by the Party and state after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. IMU was founded in 1957 with a high starting point. Its first president was Ulanhu, the former vice Premier of the State Council and Chairman of the People’s Government of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region；its vice president, Yu Beichen, a deputy director of the Comprehensive University Department of the former Ministry of Higher Education and its vice president for learning, Li Jitong, a famous biologist and a member of the department of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the first-grade professor of Peking University and a doctor of Yale University.

At the very founding of the university, the Party and the government selected and sent a batch of famous discipline leaders and academic backbones from more than ten famous colleges and universities including Peking University as the high-level faculty members, which brought the accumulated tradition of scholarship of the famous colleges and universities and noble spirit of university and laid a solid foundation for the university’s running and excellent spirit of learning.

The university began to enroll postgraduate students in 1962. It was enlisted as one of China’s key universities in 1978 and was authorized to offer Doctor’s Degree in 1984. In 1997,      it was selected as a key construction university by “211 Project”. In 2004, it became a university jointly constructed by both the Ministry of Education and the People’s Government of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and, in 2012, it was enlisted in the Project of Promoting Comprehensive Strength of Colleges and Universities in the Central and Western Areas.

【Institutions, Disciplines and Majors】

IMU is composed of the Main Campus, College of Arts, College of Transportation, Erdos College and Manchuria College. It also has an independent college with new system and new mode— Chuangye College.

There are ten major disciplines including Economics, Law, Literature, History, Science, Engineering, Agriculture, Management and Art. It has two national key disciplines including Chinese Ethnic Language and Literature, and Zoology. Ecology is the national key cultivating discipline. Besides, there are 18 key disciplines and 8 key cultivating disciplines of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The university offers 7 Doctor Degree Programs in the first-level disciplines, 3 Doctor Degree Programs in the second-level disciplines, 26 Master Degree Programs in the first-level disciplines, 6 Master Degree Programs in the second-level disciplines, 10 Professional Master Degree Programs(Masters of Engineering includes 7 engineering fields ), and 7 mobile stations for post-doctoral research.

IMU has been enlisted in the National Undergraduate Innovative Training Program and Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program authorized by the Ministry of Education. The university currently offers 82 undergraduate majors, sets up 144 undergraduate teaching laboratories, 104 teaching practice centers, 4 National Scientific Research and Teaching Personnel Training Bases of Basic Disciplines, 1 National Undergraduate Education Base for Cultural Quality, 1 National Training Base for Excellent Legal Talents in Basic Level of Western China, 1 National Comprehensive Major Reform Pilot Base, 2 National Experimental Zone for the Innovation Personnel Training Model, 8 National Characteristic Majors, 2 National Experiment Teaching Demonstration Centers, 2 National Undergraduate Off-campus Educational Practice Bases, opens 6 National Excellent Courses, 3 National Excellent Resources-sharing Courses, 7 National Excellent Open Video Courses, 2 National Bilingual Teaching Demonstration Courses, 1 Brand Course Taught in English for the International Students in China and possesses 4 National Teaching Groups.   

【Student Number】Now, there are 31,792 students including 19,781 undergraduates and 6,462 postgraduates. There are 11,869 undergraduates, 6305 postgraduates, and more than 800 international students on the main campus. Among the students, ethnic minorities, such as Mongols, Daurs, Evenkis, Oroqens and so on, account for 35% of the total.

【Talents Construction】Among IMU’s 2,727 faculty and staff members, there are 1,769 members of teaching and research, 262 professors and 551 associate professors, 1,040 members of teaching and research on the Main Campus, with 62% them having doctoral degree, 211 professor, 332 associate professors.

There are 2 specially – appointed professors unlisted as the “Changjiang Scholars Program” of the Ministry of Education, 2 research teams of “Changjiang Scholars Programand Innovative Research Team Program” of the Ministry of Education, 1 innovation team in the Key Field of Innovation Talents Promotion Plan supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, 5 teachers who are listed in national “A Million Talents Project”, 3 teachers who won National Teacher of Teaching Award, 1 teacher who is chosen as “The First Batch of Youth Talent Support Program in China”, and 13 teachers who are enlisted as “New Century Excellent Talent Support Plan”.  

92 faculty members have been elected as the candidates of “Grassland Talents Project” in the Autonomous Region, and there are 15 innovation teams, 13 scientific and technological innovation teams at the level of the Autonomous Region, and 22 teaching groups. Besides, IMU has 3 members of the Discipline Assessment Section of the State Council, 1 member of the Science and Technology Committee of the Ministry of Education, 1 member of the Academic Committee, 1 member of the Expert Committee on Discipline Development and Specialty of the Ministry of Education, 18 members of the Teaching Steering Committee of the Ministry of Education. What’s more, 7 winners have the title of “Young and Middle-Aged Experts with Outstanding Contribution to the State”, 81 experts with the honor of enjoying the special allowance of the State Council, 1 winner of the title of “Outstanding Professional and Technical Personnel”, 11 winners have been awarded the title of the “Outstanding Talent”, 44 faculty members have claimed the title of “Young and Middle-Aged Experts with Outstanding Contributions to Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region”, and 1 team has claimed the honorary title of “National Advanced Group of Professional and Technical Personnel”.

【Scientific Research】The university has set up 8 ministerial key research platforms in the fields like Mongolian study, biology, ecology, chemistry and so on, which include a Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences of Ministry of Education, a National Key Laboratory Cultivating Base constructed by the joint efforts of Ministry of Science and Technology and the Autonomous Region, a Key Laboratory of Ministry of Agriculture, a Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education and an Engineering Research Center of Ministry of Education, etc.

Besides, the university embraces 30 Key Laboratories in the Autonomous Region, Engineering Technology Research Centers and Key Research Bases of Humanities and Social Sciences. During the “12th Five-Year” period, 360 National and Ministerial Research Projects were completed in total with 626 research projects having been newly approved, 454 Scientific Research Projects of the Autonomous Region being completed, 741 research projects having been newly approved, and 520 million  research funds having arrived at the account. IMU has presided over and undertaken 45 Major Projects of National Natural Science that includes National Science and Technology Major Projects and National Science and Technology Support Program. It has 5 Major Projects of the National Social Science Foundation, 1 Key Projects, 2 Key Projects of Humanities and Social Sciences of Ministry of Education. It has won an Award of the National Science and Technology, a Second-Prize Award of the National Science and Technology Progress, a Second-Prize Award of Outstanding Achievements of Scientific Research in Higher Education Institutions of Ministry of Education, 55 Awards of Philosophy and Science Achievement, 22 Natural Science Awards and Scientific and Technological Progress Awards. Based on statistical results of Web of Science and InCites, in 2015, the university’s international influence of academic achievements increased by 3.85 times of 2010.  

【Social Service】The university’s ability of serving the local development has been improved significantly. It has made important progress in research and application in the fields like modern agriculture and livestock husbandry, ecological environment construction, energy and new materials, mineral resources, bio medicine, food safety, the new generation information technology, the construction of a large-scale and dynamic national cultural area, and strategic decision-making and consulting. The university’s contribution to local development is increasing day by day.

IMU has realized the improvement and industrial application of the biological technology system of cattle and sheep breeding, established a new model of ecological breeding for cattle, sheep and camels, and built up an integrated grassland adaptive grazing technique and a comprehensive improvement technique of degraded grassland as well as a technique of sustainable utilization of cutting grassland. It also carried out the construction of comprehensive demonstration area of ecological livestock husbandry in modern family ranch, and found common key technologies existing in potato industry based on the national science and technology supporting program. The university has developed and innovated Mongolian Medicine with the utilization of Modern Pharmaceutical Technology on the basis of Traditional Mongolian Medicine. It has developed a series of patent technology of Bentonite deep processing in the light of some key technical problems of the purification and separation of raw ore. It also provided important technical support for the development of strategic emerging photovoltaic industry and the construction of PV town and fusion demonstration base of modern agriculture and animal husbandry. IMU also has developed a multilingual mobile phone electronic dictionary software based on Mongolian language, a interconversion system between Mongolian and Cyrillic Mongolian and the first speech recognition and synthesis system in Mongolian, and so on.