Westlake University

Westlake University (Chinese: 西湖大学) is a private, non-profit research university in the Yungu block of Xihu District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China, established in 2018 and overseen by the Zhejiang provincial education department.西湖大学是浙江省杭州市西湖区云谷区块的一所社会力量举办的非营利性研究型大学，2018 年设立，由浙江省教育厅统筹管理和指导。

It grew out of the Westlake Institute for Advanced Study, founded in 2015 by seven scholars including Shi Yigong and Pan Jianwei, and it began with doctoral education before admitting its first undergraduates in 2022.学校前身为 2015 年由施一公、潘建伟等七位学者创办的浙江西湖高等研究院，先办研究生教育，2022 年才开始招收本科生。

Its full-time enrolment is capped at 5,000, its faculty is recruited globally and expected to reach 300 professors by 2026, and it is in the 201-300 band of the 2026 Academic Ranking of World Universities.学校全日制在校生规模不超过 5000 人，师资面向全球招聘、预计 2026 年达到 300 名教授，在 2026 年软科世界大学学术排名中处于第 201-300 名区间。

History

• On 11 March 2015 seven scholars, Shi Yigong, Chen Shiyi, Pan Jianwei, Rao Yi, Qian Yingyi, Zhang Hui and Wang Jian, submitted a proposal to the state for a pilot privately funded research university, and the idea received support.2015 年 3 月 11 日，施一公、陈十一、潘建伟、饶毅、钱颖一、张辉、王坚七位学者正式向国家提交《关于试点创建新型民办研究性的大学的建议》，并获得支持。
• The Westlake Institute for Advanced Study was registered in Hangzhou on 1 December 2015 and held its founding meeting on 10 December 2016, attended by Han Qide, then a vice-chairman of the national political consultative conference, and acting governor Che Jun.浙江西湖高等研究院于 2015 年 12 月 1 日在杭州注册成立，2016 年 12 月 10 日举行成立大会，时任全国政协副主席韩启德与浙江省代省长车俊等出席。
• Its founding donors included Wang Donghui, Wang Jianlin, Deng Feng, Ge Hang, Huang Changhua and Ma Huateng, a list that set the pattern of private philanthropy behind the institution.高研院的创始捐赠人包括王东辉、王健林、邓锋、葛航、黄昌华与马化腾，这份名单奠定了学校依靠社会捐赠办学的格局。
• The institute opened four research bodies, in science, frontier technology, basic medicine and biology, which conducted research and trained doctoral students before the university itself existed.高研院下设理学、前沿技术、基础医学与生物学四个研究所，在大学正式设立之前即开展科研与博士生培养。
• On 19 March 2017 the first academic staff moved into the 100,000 square metre Yunqi campus in Yunqi Town, and the park was formally opened.2017 年 3 月 19 日，首批学术人才与教职员工入驻位于杭州云栖小镇约 10 万平方米的园区，高研院园区正式启用。
• In December 2017 Shi Yigong told the Zhejiang Entrepreneurs annual meeting that within five years the faculty would match Tokyo, Tsinghua, Peking and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and within fifteen years Caltech.2017 年 12 月，施一公在《浙商》年会上表示，学校五年后教师科研水平比肩东京大学、清华大学、北京大学与香港科技大学，十五年后可与加州理工相媲美。
• The Ministry of Education approved the establishment of Westlake University on 14 February 2018 and issued the formal letter on 2 April 2018, the legal founding date of the university.教育部于 2018 年 2 月 14 日批准设立西湖大学，并于 2018 年 4 月 2 日正式印发同意设立的函，这一天成为学校的法定设立日。
• On 3 April 2018 construction began at Yungu, the main campus in the Zijingang technology city, on a site of about 1,495 mu with a first phase of 635 mu and 422,000 square metres of buildings.2018 年 4 月 3 日，主校区云谷校区在紫金港科技城云谷区块开工，一期用地约 1495 亩，其中首期建设用地 635 亩，首期校舍建筑面积约 42.2 万平方米。
• The first board meeting on 16 April 2018 elected Qian Yingyi as chairman, the Nobel laureate Yang Zhenning as honorary chairman and Shi Yigong as founding president.2018 年 4 月 16 日召开创校校董会第一次会议，钱颖一当选校董会主席，诺贝尔奖得主杨振宁当选名誉主席，施一公当选首任校长。
• On 24 August 2018 the university enrolled 120 doctoral students of the 2018 cohort, the first intake after the Ministry of Education's approval and the second cohort in its short history.2018 年 8 月 24 日，学校招收的 120 名 2018 级博士研究生入学，这是教育部批复后招收的首届学生，也是学校历史上的第二批学生。
• Westlake University was formally inaugurated on 20 October 2018, three and a half years after the first proposal and less than a year after the first building opened.2018 年 10 月 20 日，西湖大学正式宣告成立，距最初建议三年半，距园区启用不到一年。
• On 5 November 2018 the presidents of Rice University, New York University and the Southern University of Science and Technology, with representatives of MIT and Yale, signed the Westlake Higher Education Forum declaration in Hangzhou.2018 年 11 月 5 日，莱斯大学、纽约大学与南方科技大学校长，以及麻省理工学院、耶鲁大学代表在杭州联合签署《2018 西湖高等教育论坛联合宣言》。
• A joint research institute for intelligent robots with the construction firm Bozhilin was unveiled in Shunde, Foshan and in Hangzhou on 16 November 2018, one of the university's first industry partnerships.2018 年 11 月 16 日，西湖大学与博智林共建的智能机器人联合研究院在佛山顺德与杭州两地揭牌，是学校最早的企业合作之一。
• In August 2021 the Ministry of Education approved doctoral programmes in biology, chemistry and electronic science and technology, the university's first three degree-granting disciplines.2021 年 8 月，学校申请的生物学、化学、电子科学与技术三个博士点均获批准，成为其最早拥有学位授予权的三个学科。
• The first two phases of the Yungu campus opened on 23 October 2021, when construction of a third phase also began, and the completed campus was declared finished in June 2025.云谷校区一期与二期于 2021 年 10 月 23 日正式启用，三期同日开工，整个校区于 2025 年 6 月全面完工。
• The second board, convened on 17 April 2022, kept Yang Zhenning as honorary chairman and Qian Yingyi as chairman and added Qin Yinglin, chairman of Muyuan Foods, as vice-chairman.2022 年 4 月 17 日第二届董事会第一次会议召开，杨振宁继续任名誉主席、钱颖一继续任主席，牧原食品董事长秦英林出任副主席。
• On 31 July 2022 the university held its first undergraduate opening ceremony, admitting 60 students from 32 secondary schools through a pilot in Zhejiang that combined document review, written tests, the gaokao and interviews.2022 年 7 月 31 日，学校举行首届本科生开学典礼，当年面向浙江省试点招生 60 人，来自 32 所中学，须经初审、初试、高考与复试等多环节考核。
• The first doctoral graduation ceremony took place on 1 July 2023, with theses covering Covid-related research and the discovery of the first photocathode quantum material, among other results.2023 年 7 月 1 日，学校在云谷校区学术会堂举行首届博士研究生毕业典礼，论文涵盖新冠相关研究与首个光阴极「量子」材料的发现等成果。
• On 6 November 2023 Westlake signed an agreement with the Hangzhou health commission to make the city's First People's Hospital its affiliated hospital and launched a medical school under the immunologist Dong Chen.2023 年 11 月 6 日，学校与杭州市卫生健康委员会签约，将杭州市第一人民医院作为西湖大学医学院附属医院，并启动医学院建设，由免疫学家董晨任首任院长。
• In April 2024 the university agreed with Southern Medical University to run a joint eight-year clinical medicine track and joint doctoral programmes, extending its teaching into medicine.2024 年 4 月，学校与南方医科大学签订协议，推动临床医学八年制与博士研究生联合培养项目落地，把教学延伸到医学领域。
• On 29 April 2025 the university announced that it would recruit undergraduates outside Zhejiang for the first time, in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Henan, Guangdong and Chongqing, and in December added Shandong, Anhui and Jiangxi for 2026.2025 年 4 月 29 日，学校宣布首次走出浙江，面向上海、江苏、河南、广东、重庆招收本科生；同年 12 月又宣布 2026 年首次面向山东、安徽与江西招生。

Academics

• Four schools make up the university: life sciences, which covers biology and basic medicine, science, engineering and medicine, led in their founding years by Yu Hongtao, Deng Li, Yang Yang and Dong Chen.学校设生命科学学院（含生物学与基础医学）、理学院、工学院与医学院四个学院，首任院长分别为于洪涛、邓力、杨阳与董晨。
• The predecessor institute's four research bodies, in biology, basic medicine, science and frontier technology, continue as the organisational base for doctoral supervision.前身高研院的生物学、基础医学、理学与前沿技术四个研究所，至今仍是博士生培养的组织基础。
• Its key first-level disciplines are science, life and health, and frontier technology, while thirteen further disciplines, from biology to environmental engineering, are under construction.学校的重点一级学科为理学、生命与健康、前沿技术，另有从生物学到环境科学与工程等 13 个一级学科处于建设中。
• Biology, chemistry and electronic science and technology won doctoral authority in 2021, and the university also lists biomedical engineering, pharmacy, physics, mathematics and basic medicine among its planned fields.生物学、化学与电子科学与技术在 2021 年获得博士学位授予权，学校规划中的学科还包括生物医学工程、药学、物理学、数学与基础医学。
• The university is deliberately small: full-time enrolment is capped at 5,000 and the stated model is a high starting point, limited disciplines and research intensity rather than comprehensive coverage.学校刻意保持小规模：全日制在校生上限为 5000 人，办学定位是「高起点、小而精、研究型」，而非追求学科齐全。
• Graduate education came first, with doctoral students enrolled from 2017, and undergraduates were added only in 2022 once the laboratory base was in place.学校先办研究生教育，2017 年起招收博士生，直到 2022 年实验室基础就绪后才增设本科教育。
• By October 2019 it had recruited 104 scientists through successive global searches, and seven of its earliest hires entered the fourteenth Thousand Talents Plan youth programme.截至 2019 年 10 月，学校已通过多轮全球招聘引进 104 位科学家，最早入职的教师中有 7 人入选第十四批国家「千人计划」青年项目。
• The faculty target is 300 professors, associate professors and assistant professors by 2026, a size chosen to keep student-teacher ratios close to those of research institutes.学校计划到 2026 年使教授、副教授与助理教授规模达到 300 人，这一规模是为了让师生比接近研究机构的水平。
• Three centres in the biology institute, for structural biology, multi-omics big data and innovative drug development, define its life science platform.生物学研究所下设结构生物学研究中心、多组学大数据研究中心与创新药物研发中心，构成其生命科学平台。
• The frontier technology institute works on robotics and artificial intelligence, aerospace, big data and large-scale scientific computing, and environmental science and engineering.前沿技术研究所研究机器人与人工智能、航空航天、大数据与大规模科学计算以及环境科学与工程。
• The Yunqi campus can hold 120 independent laboratories and 2,000 research and support staff, while Yungu was designed for 300 laboratories and 3,000 doctoral students.云栖校区可容纳 120 个独立实验室与 2000 位科研及辅助人员，云谷校区则按 300 个独立实验室与 3000 名博士生设计。
• The medical school focuses on microbiology and vaccines, immunology and inflammation, metabolic biology, tumour biology and therapy, genetics and rare diseases, drug discovery and public health.医学院重点研究微生物学与疫苗、免疫学与炎症、生物学与代谢、肿瘤生物学与治疗、生物遗传与罕见病、药物研发以及公共健康。
• Governance follows a board-led president responsibility system, with the Hangzhou Westlake Education Foundation raising private resources and the provincial education department providing oversight.学校实行董事会领导下的校长负责制，由杭州市西湖教育基金会筹集社会资源，浙江省教育厅负责统筹管理与指导。
• The Westlake Higher Education Forum, launched in 2018 and planned every two years, brings foreign university leaders to Hangzhou for exchanges on interdisciplinary research and academic freedom.西湖高等教育论坛 2018 年发起，计划每两年举办一届，邀请国外高校领导来杭交流跨学科研究与学术自由议题。
• Undergraduates are taught in four residential colleges modelled on traditional Chinese academies and on the house systems of leading Western universities, with several mentors assigned to each student.本科生按借鉴中国传统书院与国外名校书院模式设立的四大书院管理，每位本科新生配备多名导师。
• Because the university has no large arts or social science faculties, its research output is concentrated in a handful of expensive laboratory fields, from structural biology to quantum materials.由于没有大型人文社科学院，其科研产出集中在结构生物学到量子材料等少数高投入实验学科。

Campus

• The university has two campuses: Yunqi, a 100,000 square metre park of seven buildings in Yunqi Town, and Yungu, the 1,495 mu main campus in the Zijingang technology city.学校有两个校区：云栖小镇内约 10 万平方米、共 7 幢楼的云栖校区，以及紫金港科技城内 1495 亩的云谷主校区。
• Yunqi holds the four research institutes, two student apartment blocks and an administration building enclosed by them, with a small sports ground beside the apartments.云栖校区由四个研究所、两幢学生公寓与居中的行政楼围合而成，公寓旁设一个小操场。
• Yungu's first phase used 635 mu and its second 125 mu, producing 42 buildings, 10 bridges and 457,000 square metres of floor space, with a third phase finished in June 2025.云谷校区一期用地 635 亩、二期 125 亩，建成 42 座建筑、10 座桥梁，总建筑面积 45.7 万平方米，三期于 2025 年 6 月完工。
• The campus is laid out as concentric circles, with a ring of water and twelve bridges separating and linking the natural, academic and living rings.校区采用「同心圆」布局，以一条环形水系与 12 座桥梁实现自然环、学术环与生活环的融合。
• The academic ring is the core: a circular shared research platform connected to four courtyards, all joined by C-shaped corridors.学术环是校园核心，由一个环形公共科研平台与相连的四组院落组成，彼此以「C 形」连廊串联。
• The life sciences building of about 31,150 square metres holds 47 independent laboratories, the science building of 37,159 square metres holds 89, and the engineering building of 50,464 square metres holds 90.生命科学研究楼建筑面积约 31150 平方米，可容纳 47 个独立实验室；理学研究楼约 37159 平方米，可容纳 89 个；工学研究楼约 50464 平方米，可容纳 90 个。
• The academic hall at the centre of the ring seats 1,200 and hosts international conferences, opening ceremonies and performances in 10,830.9 square metres above and below ground.位于学术环核心的学术会堂设 1200 个观众席，建筑面积共 10830.9 平方米，用于大型国际会议、开学典礼与文艺演出。
• The academic exchange centre, an oval tower nearly 100 metres tall inspired by the DNA double helix, contains 18,974.5 square metres above ground for conferences, lodging and dining.学术交流中心是一座近百米高的椭圆形建筑，设计灵感来自 DNA 双螺旋，地上建筑面积约 18974.5 平方米，集会议、住宿与餐饮于一体。
• An 8,204 square metre animal research centre with three floors above ground and one below serves the life science laboratories, and a separate canteen building sits nearby.实验动物中心建筑面积约 8204 平方米，地上三层、地下一层，服务生命科学实验室，附近另设餐厅。
• Postdoctoral housing consists of four buildings with 484 flats of 60 square metres, each with a bedroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom and balcony facing south.博士后公寓共 4 幢 484 套，每套 60 平方米，设一室一厅一厨一卫一阳台，全部朝南。
• Graduate housing has five blocks and 1,316 single rooms, with every two rooms sharing a living room, balcony and bathroom and each floor having its own laundry area.研究生公寓共 5 幢、1316 间单人间，每两间共用一个客厅、阳台与卫生间，每层单独设洗衣服务区。
• Four undergraduate blocks, H1 to H4, house the four residential colleges, each seven floors high with four-bedroom suites and a decorative theme: modern, natural, classical and romantic.四栋本科生公寓 H1 至 H4 分属四大书院，每栋地上 7 层，套间以四室一厅为主，并分别以现代、自然、古典与浪漫为主题。

Reputation

• The 2026 Academic Ranking of World Universities places Westlake University in the 201-300 band, an unusually high position for a university founded in 2018.2026 年软科世界大学学术排名把西湖大学列入第 201-300 名区间，对一所 2018 年才设立的大学而言这是相当高的位置。
• The university is not listed in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2027, so no THE band is recorded for it.西湖大学未进入 2027 年泰晤士高等教育世界大学排名，因此没有对应的区间名次。
• U.S. News ranks it 290th in its 2026-2027 Best Global Universities list, the only one of the three tables in which it is given a precise position.在 2026 至 2027 年度 U.S. News 全球最佳大学排名中，学校位列第 290 位，这是三项榜单中唯一给出精确名次的一项。
• It does not appear in the QS World University Rankings 2027, a predictable absence for an institution that only began undergraduate teaching in 2022.学校未进入 2027 年 QS 世界大学排名，对一所 2022 年才开始本科教学的院校来说，这一缺席并不意外。
• ARWU's reliance on highly cited papers and top-journal output favours a small, research-only university with a heavily funded laboratory base, which is precisely Westlake's design.软科依赖高被引论文与顶级期刊产出，这对规模小、以研究为主且实验室投入巨大的大学有利，而西湖大学正是这样的设计。
• Its absence from THE reflects the small size and recent creation of the institution rather than a weak result, since the ranking's indicators assume broad teaching provision.该校未出现在泰晤士榜单上，反映的是规模小、建校晚，而非成绩不佳，因为该榜单的指标预设了较完整的教学体系。
• The board's honorary chairman Yang Zhenning, who won the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics, gives the young institution a link to the most senior ranks of twentieth-century science.校董会名誉主席杨振宁是 1957 年诺贝尔物理学奖得主，这所年轻大学因此与二十世纪科学界最高层建立了联系。
• Its founding donors, among them Wang Jianlin and Ma Huateng, and its foundation funding model make it unusual among Chinese universities, which normally depend on state budgets.其创始捐赠人包括王健林与马化腾，加上基金会的筹资模式，使它在普遍依赖国家财政的中国高校中显得特殊。
• The 2023 first doctoral cohort, whose theses included work on Covid and on a new photocathode quantum material, is the first measurable output of the research model.2023 年首届博士毕业生的论文涉及新冠研究与新型光阴极量子材料，是这一研究模式首批可衡量的产出。

Student life

• Full-time enrolment is capped at 5,000, and in practice the student body is dominated by doctoral candidates, with undergraduates admitted only since 2022.学校全日制在校生上限为 5000 人，实际以博士生为主体，本科生自 2022 年起才出现。
• The first undergraduate cohort numbered 60, drawn from 32 secondary schools in Zhejiang, and the intake has since widened to eight provincial-level regions.首届本科生仅 60 人，来自浙江 32 所中学，此后招生范围已扩大到八个省级行政区。
• In 2026 the university reported that most of its incoming undergraduates scored above 670 in the gaokao, and that more than 140 school principals accompanied their students to the opening ceremony.2026 年学校称多数本科新生高考分数在 670 分以上，并有 140 余位中学校长或书记亲自送学生参加开学典礼。
• The four residential colleges, alpha, beta, gamma and delta, each occupy a whole seven-storey block, and their themes of modern, natural, classical and romantic shape common-room decoration and activities.四大书院 α、β、γ、δ 各占一整栋 7 层公寓楼，现代、自然、古典与浪漫的主题决定了公共空间的装饰与活动。
• Each undergraduate is assigned several mentors rather than a single adviser, a structure borrowed from research supervision and applied to first-year students.每位本科生配备多名导师而非单一导师，这一结构借自研究生指导并下移到本科阶段。
• Graduate students live in 1,316 single rooms grouped in fives, sharing a living room, balcony and bathroom between pairs of rooms.研究生住在 1316 间单人间中，每两间共用客厅、阳台与卫生间。
• Postdoctoral researchers are housed in 484 flats of 60 square metres, an arrangement that treats them as long-stay residents rather than transient staff.博士后住在 484 套 60 平方米的公寓中，这一安排把他们视为长期住户而非流动人员。
• Yunqi has only a small sports ground, while Yungu provides outdoor courts and fields around the living ring, so organised sport is concentrated on the new campus.云栖校区只有一个小操场，云谷校区则在生活环周边设置室外球场与场地，有组织的体育活动因此集中在新校区。
• Doctoral graduates from the 2023 cohort moved into universities, research institutes and corporate laboratories, the three destinations the university names for its PhD output.2023 届博士毕业生进入高校、科研院所与企业的研究机构，这也是学校为其博士产出列出的三个去向。

Notable people

• Shi Yigong, a structural biologist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, proposed the university, led its preparation and became founding president in 2018.结构生物学家、中国科学院院士施一公是大学的倡议者，主持筹建工作，并于 2018 年出任首任校长。
• Chen Shiyi, a fluid mechanist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was one of the seven founding proposers and later became president of the Southern University of Science and Technology.流体力学专家、中国科学院院士陈十一是七位创始倡议人之一，后来出任南方科技大学校长。
• Pan Jianwei, a quantum physicist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was another of the seven proposers and remains associated with the university's quantum materials work.量子物理学家、中国科学院院士潘建伟同为七位倡议人之一，至今与学校的量子材料研究保持联系。
• Rao Yi, a neurobiologist and former dean of life sciences at Peking University, was among the seven proposers and helped shape the research-only model.神经生物学家、曾任北京大学生命科学学院院长的饶毅是七位倡议人之一，参与了研究型定位的拟定。
• Qian Yingyi, an economist and former dean of the Tsinghua School of Economics and Management, has chaired the board of directors since the first meeting in April 2018.经济学家、曾任清华大学经济管理学院院长的钱颖一自 2018 年 4 月首次校董会起担任董事会主席。
• Wang Jian, the founder of Alibaba Cloud and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, was the seventh proposer and represents the technology industry on the founding side.阿里云创始人、中国工程院院士王坚是第七位倡议人，在创办方中代表技术产业界。
• Yang Zhenning, who shared the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics, has been honorary chairman of the board since 2018 and lent the new university his scientific standing.1957 年诺贝尔物理学奖得主杨振宁自 2018 年起任校董会名誉主席，为这所新大学提供了学术声望。
• Dong Chen, an immunologist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, became the first dean of the medical school in 2023 and also heads its affiliated Hangzhou First People's Hospital.免疫学家、中国科学院院士董晨 2023 年出任医学院首任院长，同时兼任附属杭州市第一人民医院院长。
• Yu Hongtao, a biologist, was the first dean of the School of Life Sciences and also led the biology and basic medicine institutes inherited from the predecessor body.生物学家于洪涛是生命科学学院首任院长，同时负责承自高研院的生物学研究所与基础医学研究所。
• Deng Li, a chemist, was the first dean of the School of Science, and Yang Yang, an engineer, was the first dean of the School of Engineering.化学家邓力是理学院首任院长，工程学家杨阳是工学院首任院长。
• Qin Yinglin, chairman of Muyuan Foods, became vice-chairman of the board in April 2022, and Ma Huateng was among the founding donors whose gifts capitalised the venture.牧原食品董事长秦英林 2022 年 4 月出任董事会副主席，马化腾则是为学校提供初始资金的创始捐赠人之一。