Project 985

Project 985

Map showing major universities in mainland China. Project-985 universities are marked in blue.
Formation	4 May 1998; 26 years ago (1998-05-04)
Defunct	2016; 8 years ago (2016)
Region	China (39 universities nationwide)

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Project 985 (Chinese: 985工程) was a higher education development and sponsorship scheme of the Chinese central government for creating world-class higher education institutions, initiated in May 1998. There were 39 universities selected to be part of this program.^[1][2][3][4]

Project 211 and Project 985 were both initiated by the Jiang Zemin Administration in 1990s. They were nullified in 2016 and replaced by the Double First-Class Construction in 2017, under the Xi Jinping Administration.^[5][6]

On May 4, 1998, Jiang Zemin stated at the 100th anniversary of Peking University that, "in order to achieve modernization, our country must have several first-class universities with world-leading levels."^[7]

In January 1999, the State Council of China issued the "Education Revitalization Action Plan for the 21st Century" drafted by the Ministry of Education, deciding to focus on supporting several higher education institutions to create world-class universities and high-level universities. This plan was later referred as the "985 Project," named after Jiang Zemin's speech at the 100th anniversary of Peking University (in May 1998).^{[8][9][10][4]}

The name derives from the date of the announcement, May 1998, or 98/5 according to the Chinese date format.^[11] The project involves both national and local governments allocating large amounts of funding to certain universities in order to build new research centers, improve facilities, hold international conferences, attract world-renowned faculty and visiting scholars, and help Chinese faculty attend conferences abroad.^[12]

On June 7, 2016, the Ministry of Education under Xi Jinping nullified the two projects by invalidating the fundamental documents "Measures for the Implementation and Management of Project 211 Construction" and "Opinions on the Continued Implementation of Project 985 Construction Projects." However, in China, the names 985 and 211 are still commonly used to refer to top universities within mainland China.^[13][14][15]

There were 39 public universities selected by the Chinese central government.^[1]

• Double First-Class Construction, a scheme for improving 147 of China's universities
• C9 League, a formal group of 9 elite universities in China
• Project 211, a terminated program for developing 110 comprehensive universities in China
• Excellence League, an alliance of leading Chinese universities with strong backgrounds in engineering