Hubei University of Automotive Technology (HUAT) is located in Shiyan City, the capital of commercial vehicles in China, Hubei Province. It is located at the northern foot of Wudang Mountain, the world-famous Taoist cultural holy land, nearby the beautiful water bank of Han River, at the source of South-to-North Water Transfer Project. It is the only one state-owned university with automobile industry as the name of a university in China. The university was founded in 1972, formerly known as the Workers' University established by Dongfeng Motor Group Co., Ltd. (formerly China No.2 Automobile Manufacturing Plant). With 50 years development, the university has become a multi-disciplinary and practice-oriented university covering seven disciplines, including engineering, management, economics, science, law, literature and art.
In 1983, the university was approved by the State Council as a full-time undergraduate university, officially named Hubei University of Automotive Technology, with Meng Shaonong, a former member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, acting as the first president. In 1988, HUAT began to explore the cultivation of master's degree students. In 1994, it was affiliated to the Ministry of Machinery Industry. In 2008, HUAT was rated as an excellent undergraduate teaching university by the Ministry of Education. In 2013, it was entitled to awarding the master's degree. HUAT was rated “excellent” in the evaluation conducted by the Ministry of Education in 2016, and was selected as the first batch of universities in the "New Engineering Research and Practice Project in Colleges and Universities" by the Ministry of Education in 2018. In the same year, the university was officially authorized to develop "Double First-class" discipline in Hubei Province and the doctoral degree. In 2021, HUAT was approved as the first batch of modern industrial universities by the Ministry of Education.
The university covers an area of 956,000 square meters, with a building area of 300,000 square meters. The library has more than 1.14 million books and more than one million e-books; Modern information network system covers the whole university; The teaching equipment is excellent, and the total value of teaching and scientific research instruments and equipment is 218 million yuan. There are 1011 faculty members in the university, including 708 full-time teaching and research personnel, and more than 50% of the teachers have doctoral degrees and senior titles. The university has one double-employed academician, and more than 50 experts enjoying special allowance from the State Council, National Science and Technology Progress Award, etc.
The university closely focuses on the automobile industry chain to build discipline characteristics, and has outstanding discipline advantages and characteristics in automobile, machinery, materials, electronics and Wudang culture. There are 4 dominant and characteristic disciplines in Hubei Province and 8 key and characteristic disciplines in Hubei Province. There are 7 master's degree authorized first-class disciplines such as mechanical engineering, materials science and engineering, optical engineering and management science and engineering; and five authorized categories of master's degree in electronic information, machinery, transportation and engineering management.
The university insists on opening up and has established exchanges and cooperation with over 10 universities and research institutions in the United States, Germany, U.K., Canada, France, Australia, Finland and other countries, and 2 “Chinese-foreign cooperation in running schools” have been approved by the Ministry of Education.
Bearing in mind the fundamental task of "cultivating people by virtue", adhering to the socialist direction of running a university, HUAT is vigorously promoting the implementation of the "three-step" development strategy, that is, in another five years, it will gain the name of a higher level university; in 10 years it will become an authorized doctoral degree awarding unit and in 15 years, it shall be among the national first-class applied research universities.
