Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University - An agricultural multiversity?

Abstract

Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University (NWAFU) is the only public university in our study located in the Northwest region of China, an area that has been a considerable focus of development aid and infrastructure investment from the central government in recent years. Located in Yangling, not far from the major city of Xi’An, the NWAFU has a history going back to the 1930s, as a centre of agricultural teaching and research. In recent years, it has embraced a highly complex merger which involved two universities, and a number of research institutes under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the Ministry of Water Conservancy and the Shaanxi provincial government. As one of only two agricultural universities to be included in the prestigious Project 98/5,1 it has an important role nationally and within the Northwest region. This case study gives insights into the ways in which it has responded to the opportunities of massification and the outcomes of its complex process of merger.