The Instrumentation Discipline of Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) was founded in 1952. As the earliest-established discipline of its kind in China with the longest history, it encompasses two former undergraduate majors: Precision Instrumentation and Automatic Instrumentation, serving as a model discipline modeled on Soviet educational systems. With the assistance of Soviet experts, HIT launched the first postgraduate program in this field nationwide, nurturing China’s first generation of academic leaders and technical pioneers in instrumentation.

The discipline is among the first batch of national first-class doctoral degree-granting disciplines in China, the first batch of postdoctoral research stations, and the first batch of national key first-class disciplines. Currently, it offers two undergraduate programs: Precision Instrumentation and Measurement & Control Technology and Instruments. It houses key research platforms including the Key Laboratory of Ultra-Precision Instruments and Intelligence under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Defense Industry Research and Application Center for Ultra-Precision Machining Technology, as well as overseas academic bases represented by the University of Oxford in the UK and the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Germany. The discipline has consistently ranked among the top positions in all rounds of national evaluations for first-class disciplines, and has secured the world’s No.1 spot in the ShanghaiRanking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects for nine consecutive years from 2017 to 2025.

After over 70 years of development, the comprehensive strength and academic standing of HIT’s Instrumentation Discipline have been continuously enhanced. It has made a series of major research achievements at the international advanced level in the field of high-end precision instrumentation technology, driving the development of China’s high-end precision instruments and equipment. The discipline has cultivated a large number of innovative leading talents and spearheaded the advancement of high-end precision instrumentation technology in China. Today, HIT’s Instrumentation Discipline has evolved into one of the leading disciplines in the field of instrumentation worldwide, and has established significant international influence in this domain.