The CUST‑ITMO Joint Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics is a non‑independent‑legal‑entity Sino‑foreign cooperative educational institution approved by the Ministry of Education of China. Affiliated with Changchun University of Science and Technology (CUST), it is co‑built by Changchun University of Science and Technology and Russia’s ITMO University. Its Russian name is Совместный Институт на базе Университетов ЧПУ и ИТМО, and its English name is CUST‑ITMO Joint Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics.

The institute provides undergraduate degree education, foreign‑awarded master’s degree education and doctoral postgraduate degree education. It offers three undergraduate majors: Measurement‑Control Technology and Instrument, Electronic Science and Technology, and Applied Physics, together with a Master’s program in Optical Engineering and a Doctoral program in Optics. The schooling duration is four years for undergraduate programs, two years for foreign‑awarded master’s programs, and four years for doctoral programs. All three undergraduate majors are National First‑class Majors, and the master’s discipline is a Class‑A Discipline in China. The institute currently has 569 enrolled students, including 525 undergraduates, 40 master’s students and 4 doctoral students.

Guided by Party‑building work and committed to the fundamental task of fostering virtue through education, the institute gives full play to the institutional advantages of Sino‑foreign cooperative education. It introduces advanced Russian educational concepts and adopts a Sino‑Russian co‑management and co‑training model. Drawing on the high‑quality educational resources of both universities, it cultivates top‑tier innovative talents in advantageous disciplinary fields with solid mathematical and physical foundations, systematic professional expertise, broad international vision and strong devotion to the motherland, striving to build a benchmark for Sino‑foreign cooperative education with sound international reputation.

Leveraging outstanding faculty from both Chinese and Russian universities, the institute delivers teaching and supervises internships and practical training. Changchun University of Science and Technology has 2,318 faculty and staff members, including 1 domestically‑cultivated Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, 1 winner of the Ho Leung Ho Lee Prize for Scientific and Technological Progress, 4 national leading talents, 3 national young‑generation talents, 3 members of the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council Discipline Appraisal Group, 1 national distinguished teacher, 5 recipients of the National Hundred‑Thousand‑Ten‑Thousand Talents Project, and 33 recipients of the Special Government Allowance of the State Council. ITMO University of Russia has 579 professors and associate professors, more than 290 Doctors of Sciences and 1,100 Candidates of Sciences, over 60 foreign professors (including associate professors), 6 Corresponding Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and 2 Full Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Engineering. Each year, the Russian side dispatches more than 200 outstanding teachers with rich teaching experience, strong research competence and excellent English proficiency to teach in China, among whom over 90 % hold doctoral degrees.

Targeted at building a world‑class research‑oriented institute with distinct optoelectronic features, the institute will further highlight its strengths and characteristics and expand its brand of China‑Russia exchanges. It will establish a new tripartite inter‑university cooperation model integrating teaching, scientific research and social services. The institute will be developed into a high‑level talent training base, a high‑end expert introduction base, a high‑technology research cooperation base, and an industry‑university‑research collaborative achievement transformation base for China‑Russia cooperation, serving as an upgraded exemplar for the Belt and Road Initiative in education.