What Are the C9 League, Project 985, and Project 211?

September 2, 2026 · CSCA Gateway Team

What Are the C9 League, Project 985, and Project 211?

If you’re researching top Chinese universities, three terms keep coming up: C9 League, Project 985, and Project 211. They sound similar (all labeling "elite campuses"), but they differ in scope and current status. This article is your baseline reference before reading our "Campus Deep-Dive" series one by one.

C9 League — China’s 9 Elite Research Universities

The C9 League was formed on May 4, 2009 — roughly China’s equivalent of the Ivy League, an alliance of the country’s 9 most elite research universities. Unlike 985/211, which are long lists, C9 was deliberately kept extremely exclusive at just 9 campuses:

  • Tsinghua University (Beijing)
  • Peking University (Beijing)
  • Fudan University (Shanghai)
  • Shanghai Jiao Tong University (Shanghai)
  • Zhejiang University (Hangzhou)
  • Nanjing University (Nanjing)
  • University of Science and Technology of China (Hefei)
  • Harbin Institute of Technology (Harbin)
  • Xi'an Jiaotong University (Xi'an)

Each campus’s strengths are covered in more depth in our "Campus Deep-Dive" series above — the logos here are purely for visual identification of each university, not an implied affiliation or endorsement.

Project 985 — 39 National Research-Priority Universities

Project 985 launched in May 1998, channeling extra research and development funding to 39 selected universities to help them compete globally. Every C9 member is automatically included, plus dozens of other top campuses:

  • Beijing: Peking University, Tsinghua University, Renmin University of China, Beijing Normal University, Beihang University, Beijing Institute of Technology, China Agricultural University, Minzu University of China
  • Shanghai: Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Tongji University, East China Normal University
  • Tianjin: Nankai University, Tianjin University
  • Jiangsu: Nanjing University, Southeast University
  • Zhejiang: Zhejiang University
  • Anhui: University of Science and Technology of China
  • Heilongjiang: Harbin Institute of Technology
  • Shaanxi: Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Northwest A&F University
  • Hubei: Wuhan University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology
  • Hunan: Hunan University, Central South University, National University of Defense Technology
  • Guangdong: Sun Yat-sen University, South China University of Technology
  • Sichuan: Sichuan University, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
  • Other provinces (1 campus each): Liaoning (Dalian University of Technology, Northeastern University), Jilin University, Shandong (Shandong University, Ocean University of China), Fujian (Xiamen University), Chongqing University, Gansu (Lanzhou University)

Project 211 — Over 100 National Universities

Project 211 launched earlier, in November 1995, with a much broader scope — roughly 112 universities (sources vary between 112-116 depending on the year). Every Project 985 member is automatically part of Project 211, plus other strong campuses like Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Central University of Finance and Economics, Wuhan University of Technology, Soochow University, Yunnan University, Jinan University, Shaanxi Normal University, China University of Petroleum, China University of Geosciences, and dozens more spread across every Chinese province.

Are 985/211 Still Active Today?

This is where a lot of confusion comes from: Project 985 and Project 211 are officially no longer active, since their founding implementation documents were formally nullified by China’s Ministry of Education on June 7, 2016, replaced by a new program called "Double First-Class Construction" (双一流), fully rolled out starting 2017. That said, "former 985" or "former 211" status is still widely used as a marker of a campus’s historical prestige — including in many brochures, university websites, and even the "Membership" field in our own Campus Deep-Dive articles, since the reputation sticks even though the program itself is no longer administratively active.

So if you see a university labeled "985" or "211" anywhere (including in our articles), that’s a historical status indicating prestige level, not a currently running program.

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