Nanjing Agricultural University (NAU) is a national key institution of higher learning, included in the “211 Project” and directly affiliated to the Chinese Ministry of Education. The Division of Humanities and Social Sciences enjoys a history of more than 110 years in teaching and research, which can be traced back to the Faculty of Agricultural Economics and the Institute of Chinese Agricultural Heritage of Sanjiang Normal College, University of Nanking and National Central University. In 1920, John Buck from America established the first Faculty of Agricultural Economics in China at University of Nanking, and took the lead in its graduate education since. The pioneering work of our predecessors emphasizes on empirical researches and that shaped the academic atmosphere of “Integrity, Simplicity, Diligence and Benevolence” in humanities and social sciences studies.

After the emancipation of the Chinese nation, there have been several adjustments and integration in the Division, with its context continues and gradually grows into scale. Since the reform and opening-up policies, humanities and social sciences in general have enjoyed a fast development, and the disciplines have been broadened. Now at NAU, there are 8 faculties and departments related to humanities and social sciences, covering 22 undergraduate programs, 11 master's degree disciplines, 5 doctoral degree disciplines and 3 mobile post-doctoral research stations. The two majors of Agriculture and Forestry Economic Management and Land Resource Management are key disciplines in the provincial level of Jiangsu and in the national level. They are also the feature disciplines of NAU, together with History of Agricultural Science and Technology, and all three have been ranking among the best in China. In 2017, Library Information and Archive Management was approved and added as our new discipline of doctoral level. In the fourth round of national subject evaluation, Agricultural and Forestry Economic Management was evaluated as A+ and Public Management as A.

Agriculture is priority for the government and food for the people. Humanities and Social Sciences at NAU is actively serving the national economy. With the feature and advantage subjects and majors, scientific research is carried out by the concise team for agriculture, rural areas and rural residents. Since the 12th Five-Year Plan, NAU has carried out more than 315 national level scientific research projects, including 43 national major or key social sciences projects, 100 national social sciences fund projects, 172 national natural sciences fund projects. The university has undertaken 546 provincial and ministerial scientific research projects, among which 126 were social science projects of the Ministry of Education, 95 were social science projects of the Ministry of Agriculture, and 132 were social science fund projects of Jiangsu Province.The University is funded with nearly 60 million yuan per year in the humanities and social sciences field for scientific research and fruitful results were achieved, including over 3000 high level  articles and about 400 published books. Also, more than 100 scientific research achievement have been granted awards of provincial and ministerial level. Besides, over 80  research reports were approved or adopted at the national and provincial level. In 2012, the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences of Nanjing Agricultural University was awarded as the Advanced Collective in Research and Management of Philosophy and Social Sciences in Universities by the Department of Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education.

With more than a hundred years of development, NAU has never forgotten its original aspiration and keeps forging ahead. After several generations of exploration and devotion, the three majors of Agriculture Economic Management, Land Resource Management and History of Agricultural Science and Technology have become the advantage and several others as featuring ones, all of which have made great contributions to the prosperous development of the field in our nation. Looking forward to the future, the Division will take the discipline construction as the major line of work, to serve the society and to inherit the culture. With innovation in the system and mechanism, adjustment in structure and improvement in overall arrangement, the Division is creating a high-standard team of leading figures, constructing an academic and research platform with great influence, and producing a series of excellent work recognized at international level. With the featuring disciplines and advantage subjects, we are striving to become a division of humanities and social sciences with distinctive features and highlights that adapts to the world-class agricultural university.