On April 28, China’s Ministry of Education released the 2026 edition of China’s Undergraduate Major Catalogue, adding 38 new majors eligible for this year’s Gaokao (National College Entrance Examination). The catalogue now covers 13 discipline categories, 92 major classes and 883 majors. For the first time, four new interdisciplinary majors including embodied intelligence and brain-computer science and technology have been included, together with 11 existing interdisciplinary programs.
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the adjustment ratio of undergraduate majors kept rising, surpassing 10 percent for the first time this year. The ministry has guided universities to launch majors tailored to national strategies and industrial demand, such as energy science and engineering, agricultural robotics, biomanufacturing, digital cultural tourism and digital trade. It has also supported nine universities including Harbin Institute of Technology and Beihang University to set up embodied intelligence programs. In addition, eight provincial-level regions including Heilongjiang, Zhejiang and Chongqing have piloted the alignment of major setup with regional development, fostering 247 distinctive and advantageous major clusters.
