School of Automation, Southeast University

Tracing its origins to the Department of Electrical Engineering founded in 1923 at National Southeast University, the School of Automation was formally established in 1962 and is one of the earliest institutions in China to offer an Automation program. Its discipline of Control Science and Engineering was rated A in the fourth round of discipline evaluation by the Ministry of Education, and ranked 1st in China and 4th globally in the 2025 ShanghaiRanking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects (GRAS).

The School is supported by a first-class faculty team. Renowned control scientists, Academician Qian Zhonghan and Academician Feng Chunbo served on faculty for decades. The School currently has 100 faculty and staff members, including more than 10 national-level talents, such asCAS-CAE Academicians, IEEE Fellows, and other distinguished experts.

The School offers two undergraduate programs: Automation and Robotics Engineering. The Robotics Engineering program was established in 2016 and was the earliest Robotics Engineering program in China — the only one nationwide at the time. Both the Automation and Robotics Engineering programs have been selected as national first-class undergraduate program construction sites. Graduates of the School are highly competitive and are widely active in academia, government, and business.

In research, the School has established a key laboratory of the Ministry of Education, focusing on frontier areas such as intelligent robotics, industrial control, and artificial intelligence. It has achieved internationally recognized results in areas including networked control and polar scientific expeditions. The School has won three national science and technology awards, eight first prizes at the provincial and ministerial level, and dozens of second prizes. Its annual research funding has increased by more than 20% on average, while the numbers of invention patent applications and authorizations have risen year by year.

The School maintains close cooperation with leading universities such as Imperial College London and Boston University, and has carried out multiple joint student training programs, international academic conferences, and summer school programs, providing students with broad international perspectives.

Upholding the motto of “Strive for Perfection”, the School continues to advance discipline development and talent cultivation in service of national needs.