The School of Mathematics and Statistics is one of the oldest academic units at Wuhan University, possessing a deep historical tradition and a distinguished academic reputation. In 1893, when the university’s predecessor, Ziqiang Institute, was founded, a Discipline of Arithmetic was established. In 1914 the National Wuchang Higher Normal School created the Department of Mathematics and Physics; in 1917 it was renamed the Department of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry; and in 1922 the Department of Mathematics was formally established. In 1928, with the founding of National Wuhan University, the Department of Mathematics was placed within the College of Science. The unit was renamed the School of Mathematical Sciences in 1998, became the School of Mathematics and Computer Science in 1999, and—following the reorganization of the new Wuhan University in 2001—assumed its present name, the School of Mathematics and Statistics.

Through pioneering effort and the gathering of eminent teachers, the School—one of Wuhan University’s earliest disciplines—has for 130 years carried forward a tradition of educating successive generations of mathematicians. Renowned mathematicians such as Jiyu Huang, Jiangong Chen, Zaozhen Tang, Huazong Li, Daren Wu and Benwang Sun have taught at the School; eminent scholars including Zhaoan Zeng, Junjiang Xiao, Guoping Li, Quanyan Xiong, Yuanda Zhang, Jiarong Yu, Jianke Lu and Minyou Qi served on the faculty for their careers. The School has produced outstanding figures including academicians Xiaqi Ding, Zikun Wang, Xiru Chen, Xubang Shen and Minggao Zhang, as well as distinguished scholars such as Shanguang Chen (member of the International Academy of Astronautics), Xiaohua Xia (member of the South African Academy of Engineering), Xiaohong Chen (member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences), Zhongping Jiang (member of the Academia Europaea), Juncheng Wei (Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada) and Xiaonan Ma (ICM invited speaker; recipient of the Sophie Germain Prize of the French Academy of Sciences and the Gay-Lussac–Humboldt Prize of Germany).

Building on past achievements while looking to the future, the School has pursued institutional strengthening and scholarly excellence. In 1980 the Ministry of Education approved the establishment of the Wuhan University Institute of Mathematics. In 1981 the discipline of pure mathematics was authorized as one of the country’s first doctoral-degree conferral points, and in 2007 it was designated a national key discipline. In 2013 and 2014 the School was successively approved to establish a Collaborative Innovation Center for Mathematics and the Hubei Provincial Key Laboratory of Computational Science. In 2019, with approval from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the School established the Tianyuan Mathematical Center in Central China. In 2020 the Ministry of Science and Technology approved the School’s National Center of Applied Mathematics in Hubei, making it one of the first thirteen national applied-mathematics centers authorized for construction. In 2024 the Sino–French Joint Research Center for Mathematics was established to strengthen bilateral talent cultivation and collaborative research. With approval from the Ministry of Education, the School has also established national bases for fundamental-science research and teaching talent cultivation, as well as bases for the “Strengthening Basic Disciplines Program” and top-student training programs in mathematics. The majors of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, Information and Computational Science, and Statistics have been selected as construction sites for the national “Shuang Wan” (Double Ten-Thousand) program for first-class undergraduate programs.

With perseverance and focused development, the School has strengthened its faculty and talent pool. It comprises the Departments of Pure Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Information and Computational Science, and Probability and Statistics, and it holds doctoral-degree authorization as well as postdoctoral research stations in the first-level disciplines of Mathematics and Statistics. The School currently has 106 full-time faculty members, including 56 professors and 62 doctoral supervisors. Faculty members have been selected for national talent programs on 44 occasions and for provincial- and ministerial-level talent programs on 13 occasions. The School counts one member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences among its faculty and includes 10 appointees to national high-level talent programs and 27 recipients of national young-talent awards. Since the turn of the century, the School has won one National Natural Science Foundation “Innovation Research Group” grant, two National Natural Science Awards, one national-level teaching achievement award, one ICCM Mathematics Silver Award, and more than 40 provincial- and ministerial-level awards in natural science, technological progress and teaching achievements.

Committed to moral education and excellence in talent cultivation, the School has trained a large number of broadly educated, high-quality and innovative interdisciplinary graduates. Three alumni have been awarded the Zhong Jiaqing Mathematics Award by the Chinese Mathematical Society, and two have been selected for the Postdoctoral Innovation Talents Support Program. The School is responsible for the university’s public courses in mathematics, cultivates students’ mathematical and logical thinking across faculties, and guides students from all majors to achieve strong results in domestic and international mathematics competitions. The School enrolls more than 1,000 undergraduates and over 450 graduate students. It has been approved as Wuhan University’s “Education and Teaching Collaborative Talent-Cultivation Base,” emphasizing the organic integration of character development and professional training, fostering positive interaction between research and teaching, and coordinating education and instruction. Through party and youth-league work, mentoring programs, and pedagogical reform, the School cultivates top-level innovative talent with international competitiveness.

Active in international exchange and substantive cooperation, the School maintains exchanges with leading domestic and overseas universities and research institutes, appoints renowned scholars as adjunct and visiting professors, and engages broadly in joint training and collaborative research. In 1980, pursuant to an agreement between the governments of China and France, a Sino–French mathematics class was established at Wuhan University; its educational model has been regarded as exemplary in China’s education reform and has earned international recognition within the mathematical community. In 2024 the university initiated the Sino–French Joint Research Center for Mathematics to pool resources for pragmatic collaboration in research, talent cultivation and academic exchange. The School has signed exchange agreements with institutions such as Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Wisconsin–Madison and Université Toulouse III, enabling the annual selection and placement of students for joint training and study abroad. Each year graduates pursue exchange and further study at internationally renowned institutions including Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, New York University, Imperial College London, ETH Zurich and École Polytechnique.

Anchored in the new era and seizing new opportunities, the School pursues high-quality development, guided by a “talent-strengthening” strategy and focused on high-level disciplinary construction. It continually enhances its overall educational capacity and core competitiveness, and remains committed to advancing human welfare, social progress, scientific and educational development, and the nation’s prosperity.