Nine Universities in East China's Jiangsu Province are busy with celebrating their 100th birthday.

President Jiang Zemin sent a letter of congratulations to the ceremony. Jiang praised the nine universities for the great contributions they have made to society and urged young students to study strenuously to ensure the country's fast economic and social development in the era of globalization.

"Each of them are well-known for their expertise in different fields which has built up over their 100-year history," Vice-Premier Li Lanqing said in his congratulatory message.

Nobel Prize winners, presidents of world-famous universities, academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering were all invited to the grand celebration.

Hundreds of thousands of alumni also returned for the centennial celebration.

"We admire the commitment made by the nine universities in academic research and intellectual training," Professor Gavin Brown, vice-chancellor and principal of the University of Sydney said.

About the universities

The nine universities, developed from the same origin, Sanjing Normal School in 1902, are Nanjing University, Southeast University, Nanjing Normal University, Hehai University, Nanjing University of Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing Forestry University, Jiangsu University and Jiangnan University.

Among the nine universities, Nanjing University, Southeast University and Nanjing Normal University carry the biggest weight.

Nanjing University enjoys a great reputation worldwide. Statistics show that from 1992 to 1998, a great number of theses written by the faculty of the university were documented by the Science Citation Index, an international scientific research documentation organ, ranking first among China's universities.

Southeast University is one of the top universities in scientific research in China.

Nanjing Normal University is one of the first universities approved by the Ministry of Education to open up for overseas cooperation. It has entered cooperation with 44 overseas institutions of higher learning since the 1970s.

(People's Daily May 21, 2002)