The university traces its origins to Fudan College, established in 1905 by Chinese Jesuit priestMa Xiangbo. Prior to founding Fudan, Ma had establishedAurora College, where theSociety of Jesus frequently opposed and intervened in student movements. This led Ma to create a new institution, Fudan College, as a preparatory school for higher education with government funding, offering three-year education for general or specialised tracks.[4]: 58-60 After the1911 Revolution, Fudan continued to offer general rather than specialised education.[4]: 63
Fudan became a private university in 1917, establishing specialised departments including Chinese literature, foreign literature, banking, business and administration, economics, politics, civil engineering and psychology.[4]: 63 In 1921, university preparatory education was ended and the university began to adopt an American-styled credit and elective system, per a national policy.[4]: 69 In 1928, Fudan was registered with the Ministry of Education of the newly founded Nationalist government. In 1929, the university was organised into four faculties, namely Liberal Arts, Science, Law and Commerce. In 1937, it moved to Chongqing due to the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War.[4]: 71
In 1941, with the approval from the Nationalist government, the university was transformed from a private university to a national university, which allowed the government to control Fudan's major posts, including the president, provost and dean. In early 1946, the university returned to Shanghai.[4]: 71 In China under Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, Fudan University was tasked with providing a Western-style education to Chinese students to support the country's economic reconstruction efforts.[4]: 75
In 1949, the university was taken over by the Shanghai Military Control Commission of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as the CCP defeated the Kuomintang in the Chinese civil war.[4]: 77 By 1952, the CCP remodelled the Chinese higher education based on the Soviet model, leading to the inclusion of Communist ideology in Fudan's educational offerings.[4]: 79 Fudan was transformed into a Soviet-style comprehensive university, with departments of arts and science of other universities merged into Fudan, leaving Fudan the only university to provide basic science and arts in Shanghai.[4]: 81 In China under Mao Zedong, Fudan University was tasked with transmitting socialist values to further the agenda of the CCP.[4]: 78 During the Cultural Revolution, the teaching at Fudan was completely halted due to political turmoils.[4]: 80
In 2000, Fudan University merged with Shanghai Medical University, which was founded as the Fourth National Chungshan University School of Medicine in 1927, to form the new Fudan University.[5][6]
In December 2019, Fudan University changed its constitution, removing the phrase "academic independence and freedom of thought" and including a "pledge to follow the Communist party's leadership", leading to protests among the students.[7][8] It also said that Fudan University had to "equip its teachers and employees" with "Xi Jinping Thought", leading to concerns about the diminishing academic freedom of Fudan.[9][10]
The university set up a 1 billion yuan fund of funds for start up innovation in 2023 as well as launching what it claims to be China’s largest cloud-based scientific research computing platform CFFF.[11][12]
TheHungarian government made an agreement to open the first campus of Fudan University outside China inBudapest in 2024.[13] The expansion would cost 540 billion HUF, of which 450 billion would be paid by the Hungarian state from a Chinese loan. The construction would be mainly done by Chinese companies.[14] Hungarian education professionals and politicians denounced the investment, citing economics, higher education and national security concerns.[15]
Fudan has five undergraduate colleges – Zhide (志德), Tengfei (腾飞), Keqing (克卿), Renzhong (任重), and Xide (希德).
The university has four campuses in Shanghai – Handan (邯郸), Fenglin (枫林), Zhangjiang (张江), and Jiangwan (江湾) – that share the same central administration. It also has 17 affiliated hospitals.
Beyond business education, the Fudan Institute for Global Public Policy (IGPP) strengthens international collaboration through strategic academic hubs, including theLSE-Fudan Research Centre for Global Public Policy (with the London School of Economics) and the Fudan-Arab Research Centre for Global Development and Governance (focused onMENA regions). These centers foster cross-border research, policy dialogue, and academic exchange, positioning IGPP as a bridge between China, Europe, and the Middle East.
Regarding research output in natural science and life science, theNature Index Research Leaders 2024 ranked Fudan the No.9 university in the Asia Pacific region, and 12th in the world among the global universities.[36] The 2024CWTS Leiden Ranking ranked Fudan 11th in the world based on their publications for the time period 2019–2022.[37]
Since 1952, Fudan University has a total of 95 academicians alumni, second only to Peking University and Tsinghua University in China.[38] Fudan's notable alumni include:
Chen Yinke (1890–1969), historian, linguist, orientalist, politician, and writer.
Chen Wangdao (1891–1977), scholar and educator recognized as the first and only person to translateThe Communist Manifesto into Chinese completely
David Ji (born 1952), Chinese-American electronics entrepreneur who co-foundedApex Digital, and was held against his will in China for months without charges during a business dispute
Kerry Chen, entrepreneur, founder and CEO of ATRenew
Yan Fu, military officer, newspaper editor, translator, and writer known for introducingWestern ideas to China in the late 19th century
Yu Youren, educator, scholar, calligrapher, and politician
^"复旦章程".www.fudan.edu.cn. Retrieved7 January 2024.
^"复旦大学".polymer.xmu.edu.cn. Retrieved7 January 2024.
^"Students protest at Shanghai's Fudan University".Asia Times. 19 December 2019. Retrieved19 December 2019.A video circulating this week showed students at Shanghai's Fudan University singing the school song – which extols "academic independence and freedom of thought" – in an apparent protest.{...}Besides removing "freedom of thought", the ministry adds to the charter "arming the minds of teachers and students with Xi Jinping's new era of socialist ideology with Chinese characteristics". It also obliges faculty and students to adhere to "core socialist values" and build a "harmonious" campus environment – a code phrase for the elimination of anti-government sentiment.
