UESTC is now a multi-disciplinary university directly under the Ministry of Education, which has electronic information science and technology as its nucleus, engineering as its major field, and incorporates science, management and liberal arts.

In 1956, founded on the basis of the electronic divisions of such well-established universities as Jiaotong University, Nanjing Institute of Technology (now named as Southeast University) and South China Institute of Technology (now named as South China University of Technology).

In 1960, ranked as one of the nation's key universities.

In 1997, included in the first group of the universities in " Project 211" (top 100 in China), a national program of promoting China's higher education.

In 2001, selected as one of the Chinese universities that obtained special financial support from both the Ministry of Education and the local provincial government ("Project 985" top 34 in China).

In 2009, ranked as the 5th in the Performance Evaluation of Universities in China carried out by MOE.