30 first-level disciplines listed in 2025 Best Chinese Subjects Ranking

SCNU has 30 disciplines listed in the 2025 Best Chinese Subjects Ranking (BCSR), a professional higher educational evaluation system released by the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy recently.

Among the listed disciplines, psychology ranks 2nd nationally (top 3%), maintaining its status as one of China's top-tier disciplines. Education and physics rank in the top 7%, while marxism theory, physical education, and music rank in the top 12%. These five disciplines are all qualified as China’s first-class disciplines.

On top of that, philosophy, Chinese language and literature, foreign language and literature, mathematics, chemistry, and software engineering are in the top 20%, while Chinese history, geography, biology, environmental science and engineering, public administration, art studies, and dance rank in the top 30%. Compared to the previous year, art studies, journalism and communication, and physics saw major improvement, rising significantly in the ranking.

The Best Chinese Subjects Ranking was first published in 2017. This year, the ranking uses data on both first-level disciplines and professional degree programs as issued in the Catalog of Master's Degree Programs 2022 by the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council and the Ministry of Education. It's worth noting that professional degree programs were adopted for the first time in the ranking given national efforts to strengthen the cultivation of high-caliber application-oriented talents and promote the equal importance of academic and professional degrees.

The initial inclusion covers five professional degree programs under art studies, including music, dance, theater, film & television studies, traditional Chinese opera & quyi, as well as fine arts & calligraphy. Among SCNU's 30 disciplines listed, three are professional degree programs, namely, music (top 12%), dance (top 30%), and fine arts & calligraphy (top 40%).

Per the criteria set by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, disciplines ranking in the top 3% nationally are classified as "China Top-Tier Disciplines", while those in the top 7% and top 12% qualified as "China First-Class Disciplines". A total of 5,344 disciplines from 517 universities across the country making the list in the 2025 Best Chinese Subjects Ranking.

Below is a list of SCNU’s disciplines that have been placed in the top 30% nationally:

To see the full list of SCNU's 30 listed disciplines, click the link: https://url.scnu.edu.cn/record/view/index.html?key=f4f476394026a1d0ab9c7490d3d56e25

Source from the Development and Planning Department, SCNU.

Translated by Chen Bao

Proofread by Edwin Baak

Edited by Li Jianru

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