The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (shortly CUHK–Shenzhen or CUHK–SZ) is a research university in Longgang, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. CUHK–Shenzhen was founded on 11 October 2012, and officially approved by the Ministry of Education of China on 16 April 2014.

According to The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), the relationship between its campus in Sha Tin, Hong Kong and CUHK–Shenzhen is "one brand, two campuses". Both campuses are supervised by the same Senate and share the same academic structure and curriculum design. As Chinese law prohibits foreign (including Hong Kong) institutions to independently establish educational institutions in mainland China, CUHK–Shenzhen is legally a joint venture between CUHK and Shenzhen University as the local partner. Graduates from CUHK–Shenzhen are awarded degrees of CUHK, the same as those awarded to CUHK graduates (but denoting "Shenzhen" in the main text), as well as a graduation certificate approved by the Ministry of Education and conferred by CUHK–Shenzhen.

As of 2024, more than 10,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students are studying at CUHK-Shenzhen. Its long-term goal is to recruit 11,000 domestic and international students, 7,500 of whom will be undergraduate students and 3,500 Masters or PhD students.

CUHK intends to further its goals regarding education in Mainland China and conduct its further development with a daily-tight relationship of cooperation and combination between Hong Kong and Mainland China.

In October 2009, CUHK started to expand its study opportunities in the Pearl River Delta, including considering a campus in Shenzhen.

As Chinese law prohibits foreign (including Hong Kong) institutions to independently establish educational institutions in the country, CUHK had to find a Chinese mainland partner for the establishment of the new campus via the regulation of "Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools", in which case it signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with the Shenzhen Municipal Government where the two parties declared their intention to enhance collaboration in education by establishing new institution in Shenzhen on 6 February 2010.

The Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China (MoE) approved plans for the new institution on 11 October 2012. On 19 March 2013, CUHK signed final agreements with the Shenzhen Municipal Government and Shenzhen University . The MoE finally approved the establishment of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, on 26 March 2014.

Upon the establishment of the new institution, some Chinese University of Hong Kong alumni in Hong Kong criticized the similarity between the CUHK and CUHK–Shenzhen graduation certificates. A CUHK alumni concern group stated that the certificate should include the word Shenzhen in the title, and should mention Shenzhen University. A spokeswoman for CUHK stated that although the certificates are differentiated, "As [the] CUHK–Shenzhen degree is conferred by CUHK, the format of the certificate follows that of CUHK’s", and that the layout of the certificate was officially approved by the CUHK Senate in 2015.

Programmes at CUHK–Shenzhen are monitored by the Senate of CUHK. The Senate of CUHK is responsible for the approval of new programmes at CUHK–Shenzhen before the final decisions made by the MoE.

As of September 2024, CUHK-Shenzhen offers 26 undergraduate majors, 24 taught postgraduate programmes, and 22 research postgraduate programmes (MPhil-PhD).

The language of instruction is all in English, except for physical education and Chinese language courses, which are bilingual in English and Mandarin Chinese.

CUHK degrees will be conferred to students of CUHK–Shenzhen who meet the requirements of corresponding degree programmes offered there. The certificate of graduation from CUHK–Shenzhen will be conferred to graduating undergraduate students by MoE.

As of October 2022, CUHK-Shenzhen has over 520 scholars and researchers, including 4 Nobel Prize winners, 2 Turing Award winners, 1 Fields Medal winner, as well as nearly 30 academicians from various countries and 40 fellows of professional associations such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).

There are three "Nobel laureate research labs" in CUHK-Shenzhen led by the Nobel laureates Arieh Warshel, Brian Kobilka and Aaron Ciechanover..

The Library System of CUHK-Shenzhen consists of two libraries. The largest is the University Library (New Library), which opened in December 2017. It is a six-storey building with a total area of approximately 20,000㎡, offering over 2,800 study seats and 320 search and service terminals. The other library, the Philip Yu Hong Wong & Anita Fung Yee Leung Library (Old Library), opened in 2014 with the inauguration of CUHK-Shenzhen. It is currently used primarily as a study space for readers.

As of June 2024, the CUHK-Shenzhen Library holds over 180,000 physical books, more than 2.48 million e-books, over 2,200 multimedia materials, and 105 academic databases (including digital library of journals, periodicals, numerical data, ancient books, etc.), and also subscribes to 75 print journals and 24 newspapers. Among the physical books, there are over 90,000 in Chinese and over 80,000 in foreign languages. Of these, approximately 30,000 volumes were gifted by the CUHK Library.

Like CUHK, CUHK–Shenzhen has a collegiate system. Each student and academic staff is affiliated to one of the seven colleges:

• Shaw College
• Diligentia College
• Muse College
• Harmonia College
• Ling College
• Minerva College
• Seventh College

The first six colleges are open to all students, while the Seventh College for postgraduate students only.

So far, CUHK-Shenzhen is organised into seven academic schools that are responsible for teaching and research, plus a Graduate School:

• School of Management and Economics
• School of Science and Engineering
• School of Humanities and Social Science
• School of Data Science
• School of Medicine
• School of Music
• School of Public Policy

In addition to its academic schools, CUHK-Shenzhen has established several affiliated research institutes and laboratories, some of which are entrusted by the Shenzhen Municipal Government. The major ones include:

University-owned

• Kobilka Institute of Innovative Drug Discovery, CUHK-Shenzhen
• Arieh Warshel Institute of Computational Biology, CUHK-Shenzhen
• Hopcroft Institute for Advanced Study in Information Sciences, CUHK-Shenzhen
• Future Network of Intelligence Institute, CUHK-Shenzhen
• Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Manufacturing, CUHK-Shenzhen

Government-entrusted

• Institute for international Affairs, Qianhai
• Shenzhen Research Institute of Big Data
• Shenzhen Finance Institute
• Shenzhen Institute of Data Economy
• Shenzhen Institute for Advanced Polymer Materials
• Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society
• National Health and Medical Big Data Research Institute (Shenzhen)

The Governing Board of CUHK-Shenzhen is the highest administrative body of the university. The chairman of the board is the vice-chancellor and president of CUHK, currently Rocky S. Tuan. The board consists of 16 members, with eight nominated each by CUHK and Shenzhen University respectively. The president of CUHK–Shenzhen is responsible for the management of CUHK–Shenzhen under the leadership of the Governing Board. This main structure of administration is chosen due to the limitations of the laws for "Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools". In 2013, the governing board appointed Professor Yangsheng Xu to be the first president of CUHK–Shenzhen.

The Shenzhen CATIC Property Management, a subsidiary of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, provides property management services for CUHK-Shenzhen, such as logistics, services, building managements, etc.

There are 44 student interest clubs with the official approval from the administration such as Model United Nations, English Animator and Cantonese learning club. There is also an extensive English Club organising over 30 faculties to hold weekly meetings with a small group of students for the purpose of practice and advancement of the English language.

The Preparation Council of Student Association (PCSA) started to prepare for the establishment of the CUHK-Shenzhen Student Union (SU) from December 2014. The SU was established on 9 May 2015 by a general election among students inside the campus. It currently comprises the Student Union Standing Committee (SUSC), the Student Union Executive Committee (SUEC) and the Student Union Supervision Committee (SUOC).

The campus is located in No.2001 Longxiang Boulevard, Longcheng Street, Longgang District, which is in the northeastern part of Shenzhen, surrounded by mountainous area with distances of around 15 kilometres northeast of downtown Shenzhen and 30 kilometres north of CUHK's campus in Sha Tin, Hong Kong.

The site of the campus was formerly that of the cultural park of the 2011 Summer Universiade held in Shenzhen. The nearest shopping mall is "Galaxy Coco Park of Longgang" about one kilometre east of the campus, inside which there is a supermarket of Sam’s Club. The Shenzhen Municipal Government intends to further develop an area of international universities based on the former site of the Shenzhen Universiade Sports Centre inside which CUHK–Shenzhen has become the first member institution.

There are a variety of bus routes offered by the Shenzhen Bus Group that stop in front of the southwest gate of the campus, to various parts of Longgang District and other parts of Shenzhen.

The nearest metro station is "Universiade station", which is located about 1 kilometre northeast of the campus. It is about a 40 minute ride on the Line 3 of the Shenzhen Metro to "Laojie Station", which is in the centre of Shenzhen. The journey to the China Immigration Inspection's "Luohu Port", which is the border crossing to Hong Kong's Lo Wu area, takes around 45 minutes by metro.

Currently there are summer programmes, visiting programmes, exchange programmes, and programmes of further studies signed with other universities for students. The partnerships include those with universities in North America, Europe and Asia, such as The University of British Columbia. and Copenhagen Business School. Officers of related departments continue to make effort to create new partnerships with universities around the world.

CUHK–Shenzhen participated in the signing ceremony for the jointly initiated "Shenzhen International Friendship City University League" (SIFCUL), which was initiated by Southern University of Science and Technology, on 9 July 2014 in order to improve internationalisation of the campus and international partnership in academic research with universities in cities belonging to friendship cities of Shenzhen.

On 30 April 2015, the fifth annual Presidents Forum of Worldwide Universities Network convened at the campus.

CUHK–Shenzhen's enrollment in mainland China follows mainland’s regulations and requirements. Currently, CUHK–Shenzhen enrolls students from 25 provinces based on students’ performance in the national college entrance exam, which is commonly known as Gaokao. A dual-track admission, which involves a new assessment mode named “trinity system” as well as the traditional one, is implemented in six provincial regions (Guangdong, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Shandong, Fujian and Jiangsu). In the “trinity system”, in addition to the national college entrance exam, candidates' performance in tests of high school evaluation and exams by the university are also considered. The admission of international students is through the university's online application system.

The campus of 1 million square meters has been completed.

Phase I campus comprises the upper, middle and lower campus. The campus design of CUHK–Shenzhen implements the spatial concept of "mountains, trees and courtyard". The campus preserves the woodland mountain ecosystem and establishes a green axis through the core of the university grounds. The buildings offer a free academic environment for staff and students and are designed to fit into nature, with such features as the semi-transparent wood barriers along Longxiang Road. The campus is still under construction with currently 100 acres of area available. The second phase will be completed at around 2022, after which the total area of the campus will be around 1,500 acres.

• Official website
• CUHK Extension in Shenzhen