The Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST; ) is a public research university located in Guanshan Subdistrict, Hongshan District, Wuhan, Hubei province, China. As a national key university directly affiliated to the Ministry of Education of China, HUST is a Project 985 and Class A Double First Class University. HUST manages Wuhan National Laboratories for Opto-electronics (WNLO), which is one of the five national laboratories in China. HUST is also one of four Chinese universities eligible to run the national laboratory and the national major science and technology infrastructure. Huazhong University of Science and Technology was one of two Chinese universities awarded with the University Leadership Award by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), and elected as "China's Top Ten Research Institutions" by the academic journal Nature, called "The epitome of the higher education development of People's Republic of China". Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) ranks 96th globally, 14th in Asia and 8th in mainland China in the 2022 Academic Ranking of World Universities. It consistently features in the global top 200 research universities according to some of the most influential university rankings in the world such as Shanghai Ranking's Academic Ranking of World Universities, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and the U.S. News & World Report Best Global University Ranking. History Founding (1952–1954) In 1952, the Central Government of China sought to construct a new higher education system for the rapid development of economy, science and technology after Chinese Civil War. Three technical institutes were planned to be established in Wuhan, including Huazhong Institute of Technology (HIT, 华中工学院), South-Central China Institute of Power Engineering () and South-Central China Institute of Water Conservancy and Electric Power (). In March 1953, the institute's charter was signed by the South-Central China Government under the approval of the Central Government of China. In the original planning, the land south of the Yujia Hill was chosen for the three campuses. Physicist was appointed as chair of the three-institute initiative. Economist Zhang Peigang was appointed as chief in planning to lead the HIT initiative. In June 1953, the land south of the East Lake was chosen as the campus of South-Central China Institute of Water Conservancy and Electric Power. The same year, the South-Central China government decided not to establish an independent South-Central China Institute of Power Engineering. All the programs related to power engineering were administered by Huazhong Institute