Introduction
Lanzhou University (LZU) is a key university under the direct administration of the Ministry of Education （MOE�? and one of the top 38 national universities supported by MOE. It was previously named Gansu Law and Politics School, which was founded in 1909. In 1945, It was renamed Lanzhou National University. LZU, located in Lanzhou, the capital city of Gansu province at the upper stream of the Yellow River, occupies an area of 3,828 acres and includes 8 campuses and 3 affiliated hospitals.
Today LZU offers 84 bachelor programs, 187 master programs, 56 doctoral programs and 12 Post-doctoral R&D specialties. The university has 4,202 staffs, of which 1,758 are full-time teachers, including 388 professors, 822 associate professors, 280 Ph.D. supervisors and 9 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering. There are 18,207 undergraduates, 9,190 master and doctoral students in the university. To date LZU has cultivated more than 100,000 talented students of varying specialties after establishment, most of which have been well acknowledged and have produced excellent achievements. As a testament to LZU’s progress, “Science�? a prestigious journal in the U.S., rated it as the 6th most prominent university out of China’s top 13 universities.
LZU has a long and rich history and has offered study programs in a full range of disciplines. The university consists of 25 schools covering 11 disciplines, including School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, School of Information Science and Engineering, School of Physical Science and Technology, School of Mathematics and Statistics, School of Chinese Language and Literature, School of History and Culture, School of Philosophy and Sociology, 
School of Economics, School of Foreign Languages and Literature, School of Arts, School of Management, School of Life Science, School of Pharmacy, School of Clinical Medicine, School of Basic Medicine, School of Public Health, School of Stomatology, School of Continuing Education, School of Network Education and the School of International Cultural Exchange. By placing emphasis on basic theoretical research, LZU has made significant achievements in the field of applied research with on average more than 1,000 academic works published each year. According to statistics provided by the Scientific Citation Index (SCI), LZU is one of the universities with contributions to academic publications in international journals and has been frequently cited by leading research institutions from around the world. In 2007, the university ranked twentieth in contributions to scientific papers included by SCI and ranked thirteenth in SCI journal citations.
LZU is active in developing international academic exchange and cooperation programs. The university has established relationships with universities and research institutions in more than 80 countries and regions and more than 1,300 foreign experts and scholars have been invited to teach and conduct scientific research at the university. The School of International Cultural Exchange is the institution responsible for international students education programs and has received over 1,000 international students from all around the world.