Over 130 Chinese Universities, Including Tsinghua, Fudan, HIT, and Nankai, Add Low-altitude Technology and Engineering Discipline

On June 11, 2025, the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council issued the Notice on Launching the Extraordinary Layout Pilot Program for Degree-granting Points in the Low-altitude Technology and Engineering Interdisciplinary Discipline, which proposes that institutions may "voluntarily demonstrate and add interdisciplinary disciplines managed as primary disciplines, or autonomously establish sub-disciplines or interdisciplinary programs outside the catalog according to their actual circumstances; additionally, the addition of interdisciplinary disciplines managed as primary disciplines is exempt from annual quota restrictions on newly added self-audited degree-granting points." This policy enables universities with independent degree-audit authority to establish new Master's and Doctoral programs for the primary discipline of Low-altitude Technology and Engineering, while other institutions may autonomously create sub-disciplines or interdisciplinary programs outside the catalog under existing primary disciplines.

Recently, Tsinghua University, Chongqing University, and Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) announced plans to add the primary discipline of Low-altitude Technology and Engineering on their official university websites.

Furthermore, recent updates on the official website of the China Academic Degrees and Graduate Education Development Center (CDGDC) show that 135 undergraduate universities, including numerous Double First-Class institutions such as Fudan University, Nankai University, East China Normal University, Shanghai University, Jiangnan University, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing University of Technology, Wuhan University of Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Northeast Normal University, Xidian University, Southwest Jiaotong University, Southwest Petroleum University, Xiangtan University, and Southern University of Science and Technology, have autonomously added sub-disciplines or interdisciplinary programs outside the catalog under other primary disciplines.