Hubei University of Economics (hereinafter referred to as HBUE) is a full-time university administered by Hubei Provincial Government and a master's degree-granting unit approved by the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council, as well as a university supported by the national 14th Five-Year Plan Education Rejuvenation Project. HBUE's history can be traced back to the Hubei Commercial Middle School founded by Zhang Zhidong in 1907. With the approval by the Ministry of Education in March 2002, the former 3 colleges, Hubei Commercial College, Wuhan Finance College, and Hubei Provincial Planning and Management Cadre College were merged to form the present HBUE. With priority to economics, management, and law, the disciplines and specialties of HBUE also develop coordinately in engineering, literature, science, education, and art. It has 4 provincial-level key disciplines such as applied economics, business administration, statistics and law, also 4 provincial-level advantageous characteristic disciplines (clusters) in modern service industry, regional economic development & carbon neutrality, law, artificial intelligence & digital economy. It boosts 13 national-level first-class undergraduate major construction sites such as economics, finance, public finance, and software engineering etc. and 29 national-level and provincial-level golden courses such as finance and monetary finance etc. HBUE has established a national-level experimental teaching demonstration center for economic management.
HBUE actively promotes open education and has signed cooperation agreements with more than 40 famous universities or educational institutions in more than 10 countries and regions such as the United States, Britain, France, and Germany, as well as in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and conducts mutual visits between teachers and students, scientific research cooperation, joint training and sponsorship and other exchanges and cooperation such as recommended Graduate Program.
School of International Education (SIE) was established in 2005. During the past 17 years, SIE has cooperated with many overseas universities to cultivate associate college talents, namely, the majors of public relations and international finance with Clermont-Ferrand I University, France (2004-2008), the major of business & enterprise management with University of Pierre Mendès, France Grenoble 2 (2009-2010). It also undertook the majors of accounting and financial management and practice with Swinburne University of Technology, Australia (2011-2015) and other specialized talents training programs. A total of 330 graduates from the Sino-French collaborated class and 521 graduates from the Sino-Australian collaborated class have been educated; Since 2013, SIE has cooperated with Montgomery Auburn University, US to organize an undergraduate education program in information management and information system. So far, the project has completed 6 sessions of 626 undergraduates, and the graduates have a high enrollment rate for master’s education and a good employment prospects. Among them, nearly one-third of the students were admitted as postgraduate's students by Columbia University, New York University, the University of Pittsburgh, King's College London, the University of Manchester, the University of Melbourne in Australia and other international top universities, as well as domestic project of “Double First-Class” universities such as Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Jinan University, Zhengzhou University and Huazhong Normal University and etc. Most of the graduates choose to work in large or medium state-owned enterprises and institutions or private listed companies. The project currently has 271 students and plans to enroll 100 undergraduates in 2022. SIE initiates an undergraduate education program in 2022 for environmental design with an Italian Academy of Fine Arts namely Accademia di Belle Arti―G.B.Tiepolo and plan to enroll 87 students for the first batch.
SIE is responsible for the training of international students in China. From 2016 to 2019, there was a program for international students majoring in international economics and trade. From 2019 till now, there is a program for international business. SIE also hosts medium-term and short-term Chinese language teaching programs for international students. In recent years, it has trained 84 international students from nearly 30 countries including Japan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Zambia, Rwanda, Ghana, Ethiopia, Botswana, and Kenya.
In July 2022, HBUE decided to further solidify and strengthen the talent training system of SIE, and clearly separate this function from related administrative department to meet HBUE’s growing demand in international talents cultivation and to provide services for more professional and refined talents training in Sino-foreign cooperation projects. SIE sets up several offices, namely the SIE General Office/Party Committee Office, Teaching Office, Student Affairs /Youth League Committee Office, Project Management Office and other Auxiliary institutions for talents training; it also has 3 fundamental teaching organizations, i.e. Information Management and Information System Teaching Center, Environmental Design Teaching Center, Language & Cultural Teaching Center. There are 8 full-time administrative employees and more than 60 Chinese and foreign full-time and part-time teachers.
SIE will closely focus on the school's goal of building a top university in finance and economics, and in accordance with the scientific development policy of actively developing, steadily advancing, standardizing management, and improving quality, promote continuous improvement of the quality in international talents training, and actively explore more cooperation projects between China and foreign countries to gradually realize the comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development in international education of HBUE and contribute to improvement in its internationalization.
