Northeast Forestry University (NEFU) was founded in 1952 from the combination of the Department of Forestry, College of Agriculture in Zhejiang University and the Department of Forestry in Northeast Agricultural College. It is under the direct administration of the Ministry of Education of China, and is entitled to enjoy support from the country’s initiatives, such as “Project 211” (The Chinese Government's endeavor aiming at strengthening approximately 100 institutions of higher education and key disciplinary areas as a national priority for the 21st century) and the Innovation Platform for Prioritized Academic Disciplines. NEFU is co-sponsored by the Ministry of Education and State Forestry Administration, and by the Ministry of Education and the People’s Government of Heilongjiang Province.

NEFU is situated in Harbin, the center of the largest state-owned forest region in China. The main campus covers 136 hectares. NEFU also has two education, research and practice bases, the Mao’ershan Experimental Forest Farm (also known as Mao’ershan National Forest Park) and the Liangshui Experimental Forest Farm (Liangshui National Natural Reserve). The total area of the university reaches 33,000 hectares.

NEFU is a multidisciplinary university with Forestry as its dominant discipline and Forestry Engineering as the characteristic, together with an extensive coverage of disciplines in Agriculture, Science, Engineering, Economy, Management, Liberal arts，Law，Medicine and Art. Currently, the university is comprised of a Graduate School, seventeen colleges and one department offering programs ranging from bachelor’s degrees to doctoral degrees. 62 undergraduate programs offer bachelor’s degrees, 19 first-level and 93 second-level disciplines offer master’s degrees and 8 first-level and 38 second-level disciplines offer doctoral degrees. There are also 33 domains of 10 categories of professional degrees, 9 post-doctoral research centers and one post-doctoral research station, 3 first-level National Key Disciplines and 11 second-level National Key Disciplines, 6 State Forestry Administration Key Disciplines, as well as 1 Key Disciplinary Group of Heilongjiang Province, 7 first-level Key Discipline of Heilongjiang Province and 3 Leading Talent Echelon of Heilongjiang Province. It also has a State Training Base for Talents in Life Science and Technology which was co-approved by the State Development Planning Commission, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Education. Another State Training Base for Research and Teaching Talents (Biology) was approved by the Ministry of Education. NEFUis also a state pilot university for the reform of the educational system and State Training Program of Excellent Engineer and Excellent Agriculturaland Forest Talents.

Presently, there are more than 23,000 students studying at NEFU and 130,000 students have graduated since its founding. It has 2,600 faculty members, 1,300 of whom are full-time teachers. Some of these teachers are holders of extraordinary academic titles and various special honors: In 2007, NEFU was given the mark of “Excellence” during the evaluation of undergraduate teaching conducted by the Ministry of Education.

NEFU has excellent bases for teaching, research and practice training. The national level facilities include one State Key Laboratory of Tree Genetics and Breeding; one State Key Field Scientific Monitoring Station on Mao’ershan Forest Ecosystem; one State-local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Eco-utilization of Biological Resources; three State Experiment Teaching Demonstration Centers of Forestry, Forest Engineering and Wildlife Resources; two State Mock Experiment Teaching Centers of Forest Engineering and Wildlife Resources. The provincial and ministerial level facilities include three Key Laboratories of the Ministry of Education (forest plant ecology, biomaterial science and technology and saline-alkali vegetation ecology recovery and reconstruction in northeast oil field); four State Forestry Administration Key Laboratories; five Provincial Key Laboratories; one Engineering Research Center of the Ministry of Education; three Engineering Technology Research Centers of the State Forestry Administration; one Base for Introducing Talents of Discipline Innovation to Universities;fifty-four research institutes, such as Feline Research Center of the State Forestry Administration. The university level key facilities include seven on-campus practice training bases; two hundred and thirty-five off-campus practice training bases.

NEFU has attached great importance to education and delivered quite a few outstanding specialists, as well as many distinguished professionals, managers and enterprising talents to the society. Examples are alumni who have become national and provincial leaders, members of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, elites in business community and enterprises, etc. NEFU together with its alumni have made great contributions to Chinese forestry development, ecological civilization construction, economic and social development.

NEFU develops international exchange and cooperation in a positive attitude, and attaches importance to the education of international students. It has established cooperative relationships with over 100 universities and research institutes of more than thirty countries and regions. There are about 200 experts and scholars from Europe, America, Asia and China’s Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions who have visited NEFU for academic purposes each year, and more than 120 teachers from NEFU go abroad for the same purposes. NEFU has developed a variety of student exchange programs with cooperative universities in America, France, Finland, Russia, South Korea, Japan etc. A number of students from NEFU are sponsored by the Chinese government to study and obtain degrees from cooperative universities. NEFU has also educated a number of excellent international students, as one of the admission universities for international students sponsored by the Chinese Government Scholarship.

Since the start of the Chinese Eleventh Five-Year Plan for the National Economic and Social Development in 2006, NEFU has won more than 660 awards at all levels for scientific research achievements. These awards include one Second-class Prize of State Technology Invention Award, seven Second-class Prizes of National Science & Technology Progress Awards, one Science & Technology Progress Award of He-Liang-He-Li Foundation, 112 Liang Xi Awards of the Chinese Society of Forestry, 199 Provincial and Ministerial Awards (including 26 first-class prizes) as well as more than 1,100 national patents.

NEFU has kept the title of Provincial Civilized Unit for a continuous fourteen years. In 1999, NEFU was named as “Model of Provincial Civilized Unit”. This title has been retained continuously since then. The National Central Civilization Commission granted the honorary title of National Civilized Unit to NEFU in 2011 and 2014. In recent years, NEFU has won a number of other honorary titles such as National Education Base for Ecological Civilization, National Advanced Collective of Cultivating Students in Three Aspects, National Model Home of Workers and Staff, National Advanced Collective of Teacher’s Morals Construction, National May-Fourth Red-banner Youth League, National Afforesting Exemplary Unit, Top Ten Harmonious Campuses of Heilongjiang Province, Advanced Collective of Patriotism Education of Heilongjiang Province, Advanced Collective of Collaborative Construction of Army, Police and Civilians, Advanced Collective of Student Work of Heilongjiang Province, First-term Champion in Green Entrepreneurship Competition of Forestry Science students. NEFU has also been elected as the National Advanced Unit of Social Practice of Students for seventeen consecutive years.

NEFU adheres to its motto: Learn from Nature, Strive for Harmony. It will make unremitting efforts to consolidate its already existing advantages and distinguishing disciplinary features, to place itself at the forefront position among domestic agricultural and forestry universities by its 70th anniversary in 2022. NEFU aims to become a high-level research-orientated university with distinguishing disciplinary features by its 80th anniversary in 2032. Finally, NEFU endeavors to edge into the community of world leading universities of forestry by its 100th anniversary in 2052.