In order to serve the major national strategy, promote regional economic and social development and realize the goal of “double first-class” construction, Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai (BNU Zhuhai) is jointly established by BNU and the Guangdong and Zhuhai governments under the approval of the Chinese Ministry of Education.

Aligned with the “double first-class” construction goal and the “One University, Two Campuses” strategic deployment, BNU Zhuhai will strengthen the original dominant disciplines of Beijing Normal University and cultivate emerging disciplines of interdisciplinary subjects closely related to economic and social development. A number of national, provincial or ministerial-level platforms and laboratories are coming to Zhuhai. BNU Zhuhai will coordinate and develop key research bases, laboratories, new think tanks, and build five clusters of innovation: education, Chinese culture and art, neuroscience and health, ecological environment and green development, and future emerging disciplines.

BNU Zhuhai will respond to the development strategy and the major demand of the Guangdong-Hongkong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The university is also intent on facing the academic frontier and conducting original, forward-looking and cross-disciplinary scientific research together with its local and international partners. Three projects have been approved by the Ministry of Education: namely, the “Multilingual Corpus Construction of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area” Project by the Language Resources Research Center of Guangdong-Hong Kong- Macao Greater Bay Area; the “Looking China·Hong Kong and Macao Youth Film Project — Exchange Activities with Macao University of Science and Technology;” and “Looking China·Hong Kong and Macao Youth Film Project — Exchange Activities with Macao City University” projects by the Image Communication Research Center. As a member of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area University Alliance, BNU Zhuhai actively participated in the Alliance activities. In July 2020, the founding plan of “Environmental and Ecological Engineering Sub-Alliance,” initiated by Beijing Normal University, was approved by the Alliance Council. Other member universities are Sun Yat-sen University; South China University of Technology; Jinan University; South China Normal University; Southern University of Science and Technology; Guangdong University of Technology; Hong Kong University; Macao University; and Macao University of Science and Technology.

To better serve the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing Normal University established the Belt and Road School in September 2018, which was based in Zhuhai, a key city in the Guangdong-Hongkong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The main functions of the Belt and Road School are talents cultivation, scientific research and personnel training. It has close cooperation with partners in various countries, including Italy, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Thailand. It has also set up the Sino-Japanese Belt and Road Initiative Joint Research Center; the Sino-Kazakhstan Belt and Road Initiative Joint Research Center; and the Sino-Belarus Belt and Road Initiative Joint Research Center to carry out country-specific cooperative research. Likewise, the Belt and Road School of BNU has completed a number of research projects commissioned by the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Education and some other organizations and departments. The research project “Research on the Belt and Road Initiative and the Poverty Alleviation” was approved by the International Poverty Reduction Center in China (IPRCC) as the 2020 annual research project.