Jiangsu University was founded by combining the former Jiangsu University of Science and Technology (a key university), Zhenjiang Medical College and Zhenjiang Teachers’ College with the approval of the Ministry of Education of China in August, 2001. It is a teaching-and-research-oriented comprehensive university, strong in engineering disciplines. It is one of the first group of universities that offer doctoral programs and one of the Top 100 Universities in China. The former Jiangsu University of Science and Technology grew out of Zhenjiang Institute of Agricultural Machinery, which was ranked among China’s 88 key universities by the State Council of the People’s Republic of China in 1978, and 3 years later became one of the first batch of Chinese universities qualified to offer master and doctoral programs.  Situated in Zhenjiang, a historically and culturally renowned city, the university has grown out of Sanjiang Normal School founded in 1902 by Liu Kunyi, Zhang Zhidong and Wei Guangtao, cabinet ministers of Qing Dynasty. Nanjing University, Southeast University and a few other prestigious universities in Jiangsu province grew out of the same normal school.

Currently, Jiangsu University has 26 schools offering 87 undergraduate degree programs in 10 academic fields: Engineering, Science, Medicine, Literature, Economics, Law, Management, Education and History. The university has 11 post-doctoral research stations, 9 primary (or first-level) disciplines for doctoral degrees, 42 doctoral programs, 35 primary academic principles offering master programs and 170 master programs, 2 national key academic disciplines, 1 of which is under cultivation, 3 disciplines with special advantages in Jiansgu Province, 4 Jiangsu provincial key primary disciplines, 13 Jiangsu provincial key disciplines, 7 categories of professional master degrees, and 26 fields for ME. Jiangsu University’s principles Engineering, Material Science, Clinic Medicine and Chemistry ranks among the top 1% of ESI Inte’l Discipline Ranking. 

The university covers an area of 3,045 mu, and all of the buildings on  campus have a floor area of 1.4 million m² . It has teaching and experimental equipment worth 600 million yuan.The university has 1 national engineering and technology research center, 1 national experiment teaching demonstration center, 2 national pilot zones for talents training pattern innovation, 1 key laboratory under the Ministry of Education, 10 provincial experiment teaching demonstration centers, 53 ministerial and provincial key laboratories and engineering & technology research centers. The university library has a floor area of 62,500m²,  a collection of 2.6 million books,1.2 millions e-books and 1 Sci-tech Novelty Search Station sponsored by Ministry of Education of China. Jiangsu University Publishing House and the A-level hospital, Jiangsu University Hospital are two major affiliations to the University. 

It has a faculty of 4,800 members, of whom 2,500 are fulltime teachers, 420 professors, 190 Ph.D supervisors, 7 specially-employed academicians, 1 recruited through the One Thousand Foreign Experts Program ,1 specially-employed professor of Cheung Kong Scholars Program, two winners of National Fund for Outstanding Youth, 8 professors enlisted in the New Century Hundred-Thousand-Ten Thousand Talents Project of China, 20 young and middle-aged sci-tech leaders ,2 leading scientist of Jiangsu Provincial 333 High-level Talents Cultivation Project. The current total enrollment of full-time students amounts to over 42,000, including9,400 postgraduates, 32,000 undergraduates, 700 international students and 2,600 students for further education.