Shanghai Documentary Academy, a school of Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, is the first professional documentary school in China, which takes the lead in establishing disciplinary development of documentaries in Chinese higher education. Based on the global TV documentary market requirements and good development prospects, the Academy aims at cultivating creative qualified personnel who applied film and television to a high level, especially in the documentary field.

Shanghai Documentary Academy is located in Shanghai, the center of the Yangtze River Delta, and has advantages in development of internationalization, specialization and professionalization. What’s more, it also introduces and references educational conditions and experience from other first-class universities in the world.

At present, the Academy has Undergraduate Degree programs and Master’s Degree programs. Also, the Academy has a group of talented teaching staff. Among them 80% has PhD Degrees, 60% has overseas studying backgrounds, and 50% has professional working backgrounds.

The mission statement of the Academy is to develop application-oriented majors with international characteristics and to cultivate innovative applied talents. Therefore, in order to fulfill the mission，the Academy has set up talent training programs which are international positions, application-drive and practicality-based.

Referring to the educational experience and curriculum system of documentary majors from more than 10 foreign universities, the Academy has established a talent training program which invites the students to lay a solid theoretical foundation, broaden the learning field of vision, highlight skill training, participate in actual creative work and bring out excellent works. Meanwhile, the Academy has designed a training mode to fostering students’ theoretical knowledge,  practical ability and creative power at the same pace.

In order to fully display students’ talents and keep improving, the Academy has initiated the teaching forms of the Script Writing Workshop, the Documentary Workshop, the TV Program Workshop, the Micro Film Workshop, and others to strengthen the cultivation of students' professional skills.

To fulfill the goal of cultivating students with international competitiveness, Academy highlights the internationalization of teaching and practising, by improving the skills of students’ foreign language, encouraging students to participate in various kinds of overseas learning and practicing training activities.

Also importantly, the Dual Faculty system is another highlight of the professional faculty structure in Shanghai Documentary Academy. The Academy invites a group of directors, producers, photographers, film editors and sound engineers as full-time or part-time instructors, who have made influential efforts in the field of documentary production internationally and domestically.

Being equipped with modern teaching and practising facilities and a platform for innovation and entrepreneurship, in recent years, the students of Shanghai Documentary Academy have won more than 70 awards in international and domestic documentary competitions, and exerted an influence in the field of documentary to some extent