Communication University of China

Mission Statement

Being intended for the realm of digital creativity, our program focuses on cultivating researchers and practitioners who pay attention to cutting-edge issues in art /design and technologies and their potential impacts on humans, culture, and society. Through mastering solid fundamental theoretical knowledge in design, aesthetics, and arts, along with relevant practical skills, our students are expected to become leading talents with theoretical innovation qualities in the area of digital creative design, who are capable of researching and solving complex professional issues and grasping development trends of design industries.

International Role

The school has a good reputation and impact in design and creative industry, such as animation, digital media art, and game design and development. Our teachers and students are of outstanding creative ability and social service capacity. More than 100 of their works have won awards in prestigious events including the Student Academy Awards, SIGGRAPH, Annecy International Animation Film Festival, China Animation & Comic Competition Golden Dragon Awards, etc., and have created Jiang Ziya: Legend of Deification, The Olympic Adventures of Fuwa, Legends of the Three Kingdoms, Tuzki, Kung Fu Bunny, and other phenomenal works with wide influence. Many of our graduates are active as the industry backbone in well-known enterprises across China, Europe, Americas.

We have established stable and long-term international collaborations with a number of prestigious universities worldwide. We have many Co-Design Practice Summer School programs with a set of well-known art and design universities and colleges such as Sheridan College, Gobelins (France), Bournemouth University (UK), Loughborough University (UK), University of Southern California (US), Washington University (US), University of Notre Dame (US), Tokyo University of the Arts / Geida (Japan), Korea National University of Arts (Korea), Simon Fraser Univerisity (Canada),

Since 2006, our school has hosted the Aniwow! China (Beijing) International Student Animation Festival. The Aniwow! Festival managed to enhance the interaction between local and overseas researchers and partitioners by providing them with a platform to share knowledge and exchange ideas. It also aims to promote cultural exchange among countries, therefore promoting China's influence in the animation world. We invited art and design practitioners from the universities (see above) and industries (e.g., Pixar Animation Studio, DreamWorks Animation SKG, Disney, Industrial Light Magic, Weta Digital Digital Domain, Ubisoft, AutoDesk, NVIDIA, Epic) as guest speakers in the festival. Every year there are around 3000+audiences participate in our festival.

In 2022, we initiated and organized the first Animation and Digital Arts International Conference (ADAIC). ADAIC is focused on interdisciplinary research on animation, digital art, and technology, to bring together researchers in relevant fields and create an international communication platform for global scholars. We invited professors from Loughborough University (UK), Simon Fraser University (Canada), and the University of Pennsylvania (US) to serve as our session chairs. We have received 176 papers from 79 universities worldwide. The conference live presentation was been viewed by 12600+ audiences.

National Role

The school has a good reputation and impact in discipline construction, talent training, programme and curriculum design in China. As a first-class discipline doctoral centre selected into the ‘Project 985’ Creative Platform for Superior Disciplines, our ‘Animation’ programme has been classified as a Beijing’s ‘key interdisciplinary subject’, while our ‘Internet Information’ programme as a Beijing’s elite discipline.

Our facilities include a national demonstration centre for teaching practice, a Beijing’s Key Laboratory, etc. The school acts as the directing institution of the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) Steering Committee on the Teaching of Animation and Digital Arts, the MOE’s Animation Specialty Development Centre, the directing institution of the Association of Fundamental Computing Education in Chinese Universities and of the China Animation Association’s Education Committee.

We also have close relationships and collaborations with many national universities, associations, and industries. Many of our professors have collaborated with partner universities (e.g., Central Academy of Fine Arts, China Academy of Art, Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication, Donghua University, Tsinghua University) on research and co-teaching projects. Our school has joined the Design Thinking International Assoications. We also collaborate with many national industrial partners such as ByteDance, Tencent, NetEase, MIHOYO, Sunac Culture, Pop Mart Cultural & Creative Co Ltd, and Escape Velocity Animation Studio.

Main Focus

We oriented in both design and digital media art ranging from BA to MA (MFA, Msc) and PhD levels.