Guangdong Polytechnic Normal University (GPNU) was founded in 1957, formerly known as Guangdong Institute for Nationalities. It was renamed Guangdong Polytechnic Normal Institute in 2002 and Guangdong Polytechnic Normal University in 2018 after the merger with Guangdong Mechanical School, the Guangdong Economic Management Cadre Institute and the Guangdong Finance and Trade Management Cadre Institute in 2002 and 2005.

The university has five campuses: East, West, North, Baiyun and Heyuan; and eight major disciplines, namely economics, law, education, literature, science, engineering, management, and arts. Ethnology, vocational and technical education, Chinese modern and contemporary literature, control science and engineering and mechanical engineering are key disciplines in Guangdong province; and Chinese modern and contemporary literature, communication and information systems, as well as pattern recognition and intelligent systems are disciplines in which the university hires Guangdong Province Universities and Colleges Pearl River Scholars. The university is authorized to issue master's degrees in four first-level disciplines of pedagogy, ethnology, journalism and communication and control science and engineering; and general master's degrees in six disciplines of education, electronic information, accounting, mechanics, energy power and journalism and communication. It has 21 joint training bases for graduate students in Guangdong province.

Committed to cultivating high-quality teachers for vocational education and application-oriented senior personnel, GPNU now has 24 secondary teaching units and more than 37,000 full-time students. It offers 72 undergraduate majors, of which 36 are in science and engineering and 36 in liberal arts majors. A total of 32 of the 72 undergraduate majors fall into category of normal education. It provides more than 70 first-class undergraduate courses at the provincial and national level, online open courses and education courses.

GPNU has established a discipline system for training high-quality vocational teachers and applied talents. It has continued to deepen the integration of vocational education and industry, carry out innovation and entrepreneurship education and promote collaborative innovative cooperation projects with local governments and enterprises. It has built 264 national and provincial-level college students' practice teaching bases with well-known corporations.

In the past three years, GPNU students won a number of awards in high-level academic competitions at home and abroad, as well as more than 400 national awards and 900 provincial awards.

The graduate employment rate has remained at the forefront among its peers for years, and the university has been awarded multiple honorable titles by the government of Guangdong province.

It now has 494 teachers with senior and sub-senior titles and 631 employees with doctoral degrees. It boasts academicians, winners of the National Science and Technology Progress Award and the China Patent Excellent Award, and assessment experts of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, as well as other high-level talents.

The university also has a number of scientific research platforms and teaching and research equipment worth over 350 million yuan ($51.57 million). GPNU’s scientific research platforms include the Guangdong Industrial Practical Training Center, one provincial key laboratory of the Guangdong Intellectual Property Big Data Key Laboratory, three provincial think tanks of the Vocational Education Development and Research Center, the Ethnic Development and Research Center and the Chinese National Community Research Institute, five key laboratories of Guangzhou, two Guangzhou humanities and social sciences key research bases, 13 provincial engineering technology research centers, one international cooperation base, as well as 13 scientific research platforms and 10 scientific research teams of the Department of Education of Guangdong province.

The university has also established the Shunde Modern Vocational Education Research Institute with the Shunde people’s government of Foshan and the Heyuan Research Institute with the people's government of Heyuan. It has launched 45 research projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Social Science Fund of China over the past three years, including 30 natural science projects and 15 social sciences projects. GPNU has won 11 awards for scientific research achievements at the provincial or ministerial level, with eight in natural science and three in humanities and social sciences.

The university has been recognized as an important resource for vocational education research and vocational teacher training by China’s Ministry of Education, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, and Ministry of Finance, and the Department of Education of Guangdong province. 

With a history of over 60 years, GPNU will stay true to its emphasis on vocational teacher training and vocational education. It will remain dedicated to developing itself into a world-class polytechnic normal university with Chinese characteristics.