Seven academic disciplines offered at NAU were graded in the A category (A+, A and A-) according to the results of the 4th National First-level Discipline Evaluation announced by the Ministry of Education in December 2017.Crop Science, Agricultural Resources and Environment, Plant Protection, and Agricultural and Forestry Economics and Management were graded A+, Public Administration was graded A, and Food Science and Engineering and Horticulture were graded A-. With four A+ disciplines, NAU ranks 11th among Chinese universities nationwide.

NAU submitted 21 first-level disciplines for evaluation, and while traditional core strengths including Crop Science and Agricultural Resources and Environment maintained their leading positions among universities in China, Agricultural and Forestry Economics and Management, Public Administration, Plant Protection and Horticulture have all made significant advances since the previous evaluation in 2012.

The National First-level Discipline Evaluation is conducted every five years by the China Academic Degrees & Graduate Education Development Center under the Ministry of Education. The evaluation took over a year and assessed first-level disciplines leading to master’s degrees at 512 institutions throughout the country.