On September 21st, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Finance, and the National Development and Reform Commission jointly announced the list of “Double First-rate” Plan which aims to construct the world’s first-class universities and first-class disciplines. NWAFU, along with other 41 universities, was included in the first-class university construction list, marking a new stage of NWAFU’s construction of world first-class agricultural university.

Combining the development strategy of the nation’s “Double First-rate” Plan with the university’s featured education, NWAFU carefully planned its basic development view in “Double First-rate” construction: taking root in the arid region in China and keeping a close eye on international frontier and national strategic requirement; taking grain safety, ecological safety, food safety, and regional development as missions; taking the development of academic elites in agriculture and forestry studies, leading technology figures in innovation and entrepreneurship, and talents in social development management as the fundamental task; taking arid plant and stress biology, water-soil conservation and ecological environment, high-efficiency agriculture water usage and regional water safety, animal biotechnology, and agrotechny and nutrition & health, as the five key academic subject groups; and promoting first-class talent development, first-class discipline construction, and first-class social service simultaneously. By 2020, NWAFU aims to come out in front in major indicators among the national counterparts with two first-class disciplines stepping into the worldwide leading role and six disciplines reaching the world first-class level. By 2030, NWAFU expects to initially complete the construction of the world’s first-class agricultural university. By the middle of this century, NWAFU hopes to enter the front row of the world’s first-class agricultural universities.

Translated by: Zhao Rui
Proofread by: Yan Xianhui