1897–1914: college-preparatory school Established in 1897 by Hangzhou's mayor, Lin Qi, Qiushi Academy was the major predecessor to the university. and subsequently Chekiang Higher Institute in 1903. Elmer L. Mattox of
Hangchow Presbyterian College was appointed as the head teacher of the college, responsible for supervising and organising teaching. The Institute was the first provincial educational institution to send students to study abroad. However, the proposed reforms under the new republican government following the 1911 revolution sparked controversy, causing the Institutes to cease student recruitment in 1912 and ultimately close in 1914. In 1947,
Chang Ch'i-yun, a professor at NCKU, began attributing the university's origin to the Qiushi Academy, which was later acknowledge in the yearbook of the
Ministry of Education of the Republic of China.
1928–1949: national university After the closure of Cheking Higher Institute, the attempts to restore the institute was unsuccessful due to conflicts between warlords. After the Northern Expedition in July 1927, the
Kuomintang (KMT) took control of Hangzhou and established the National Third Chungshan University, by merging Chekiang Industrial College and Chekiang Agricultural College on the original site of Qiushi Academy. Shao refused to join KMT, which led to a tense relationship between the university and the government, and the government withdrew funding in 1932, leading to Shao's resignation.
Cheng Tien-fong, a member of the KMT, was then appointed by the
Nationalist government as the new president. Under his leadership, with the personal intervention of
Chiang Kai-shek, the university began to receive direct funding from the central government. Backed by Chen Bulei's strong financial backing and authority to make political appointments within the university, Chu was able to attract leading members of the
Science Society of China and the
Critical Review Group. In the second half of 1937, with the outbreak of the
Second Sino-Japanese War and the advance of the Japanese army, the university was forced to move from Hangzhou, first to Yishan, then to Zunyi, and finally to Meitan in
Guizhou Province in southwest China. During this period, the students of NCKU took on the responsibility of safeguarding Zhejiang's historical collections, including the
Complete Library of the Four Treasuries housed in the
Wenlan Pavilion, to prevent their capture by Japanese forces. In March 1945, Fei Gong, an NCKU professor and critic of the Nationalist government, disappeared in Chongqing in what was later proved to be a government assassination. In September, with the surrender of Japan, a group of NCKU professors led by
Luo Zongluo were ordered by the government to take over the Japanese
Imperial University in Taiwan.
1949–1976: Mao Zedong era In August 1948,
Ma Yinchu was appointed as the university president, who promoted communist education and organisations within the university. In 1950, the new Ministry of Education instructed all universities to remove "National" from their names. Hence the university's name was changed to its present name in Chinese, or Zhejiang University (ZJU). The communist education among faculty evolved into the
Thought Reform and
Three-anti and Five-anti Campaigns after Ma was appointed the president of
Peking University in 1949. In the early 1950s, the university underwent
a series of re-organisation, which aimed to establish a Soviet-styled education system, to eventually became an engineering-focused university., which only had the departments of electrical engineering, chemical engineering, civil engineering and mechanical engineering. The engineering school of Hangchow University merged into ZJU. The university's College of Agriculture became an independent university, named Zhejiang Agricultural University. The university's medical school merged into Zhejiang Provincial Medical College to become Zhejiang Medical College. The departments of Chinese Literature, Foreign Literature and Education was merged into Zhejiang Teachers College and relocated to the campus of Hangchow University. The faculty of College of Sciences were sent to Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 1954, the university moved from Daxue Road to Yuquan. Liu Dan, the university's
Party Secretary, restored sciences research and education as part of the university's engineering offerings. In 1963, ZJU was selected as one of the National Key Universities. was set up at the Zhejiang University campus on 26 December 1969 as a result of
Mao Zedong's cult of personality during the
Cultural Revolution. The statue remains a major landmark at
Yuquan Campus.In 1966, the Cultural Revolution broke out and the university ceased to function. Liu Dan was removed from office after being attacked by the
Zhejiang Daily and the ''People's Daily
. There was an emergence of radical groups in favour of Cultural Revolution.'' In August, the ZJU students confronted with younger
red guards, who were mostly high school students, to protect
Lingyin Temple from their attempts to destroy
Four Olds. In 1967, at a meeting with
Tan Zhenlin in Beijing, red guards from ZJU were told that
Mao Zedong wanted to protect
Jiang Hua in this revolution. This led to a split within red guards in Zhejiang, particularly with another faction led by Zhang Yongsheng from the Chinese Academy of Art, who wanted to persecute Jiang Hua. The two factions fought each other constantly throughout the Cultural Revolution.
1976 to present With the end of the
Cultural Revolution in 1976, Liu returned to ZJU as the honorary president, the only by far. Since 1988 to 1995, Lu Yongxiang assumed the president of Zhejiang University, during which he made "pursuing innovation" part of the university motto and reformed teaching and research systems, including introduction of the program of Advanced Honor Class of Engineering Education. In 1995, it was selected into Project 211. In 1997, Wang Ganchang and Bei Shizhang in Beijing, and Su Buqing and Tan Jiazhen in Shanghai, wrote a joint letter to the then General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Jiang Zemin, recommending a merger of the four universities. Zhang Junsheng was appointed Party secretary of the university to oversee the merger. In 2005, the university founded Zhejiang University Holding Group, later renamed as Zhejiang University Yuanzheng Holding Group. As of 2022, there are several companies affiliated to the group have been publicly listed, including Insigma Technology, United Mechanical & Electrical, and Shenghua Land. In October 2005, the university's Hubin campus was sold at the price of 2.46 billion Chinese yuan to
Kerry Properties for commercial complex development. In June 2012, Zhejiang University founded the Ocean College in collaboration with
Zhoushan municipal government. In December 2014, the university signed an agreement with the
University of Edinburgh to form
a joint institute at the Haining campus. In July 2015, another agreement to build a joint institute was signed with the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In September 2016, the new Haining campus came into use. In April 2013, 53 alumni co-signed a petition against the appointment of
Lin Jianhua as Zhejiang University's new president. An open letter by the alumni says, "Zhejiang University needs an upright and capable academic leader, not a mediocre chief executive." In November 2013, Chu Jian, vice president of the university who was rumoured to be behind the rare petition, was arrested for bribery, yet he was not tried until 2017 and was soon released after he was sentenced to 3 years in jail which had almost been fulfilled by the time of trial. In September 2013, amid extensive objection from local residents and university alumni, part of Huajiachi campus was sold at the price of 13.67 billion Chinese yuan, making the land the most expensive in the city's history. In July 2020, the university
came under intense criticism for allowing an ethnic minority student convicted of rape to remain enrolled. The public questioned whether the university's decision was too lenient for sexual harassments. In November 2020, the university founded its new Ningbo campus. In 2019, the Institute of Hainan were founded in
Sanya, Hainan. In 2021, new institutes were founded in Quzhou, Jinhua, Wenzhou, Jiaxing, Huzhou, Shaoxing and Taizhou within Zhejiang. In March 2021, tech tycoon
Colin Huang donated $100 million to support the university's Shanghai Institute for Advanced Study. == Campuses ==