The University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) is a national research university in Hefei, Anhui, China, under the direct leadership of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). It is a member of the C9 League, China's equivalent of the Ivy League. It is also a Chinese Ministry of Education Class A Double First Class University. Founded in Beijing by the CAS in September 1958, it was moved to Hefei in the beginning of 1970 during the Cultural Revolution.

USTC was founded with the mission of addressing urgent needs to improve China's economy, defense infrastructure, and science and technology education. Its core strength is scientific and technological research, and more recently has expanded into humanities and management with a strong scientific and engineering emphasis. USTC has 12 schools, 30 departments, the Special Class for the Gifted Young, the Experimental Class for Teaching Reform, Graduate Schools (Hefei, Shanghai, Suzhou), a Software School, a School of Network Education, and a School of Continuing Education. In 2012 the Institute of Advanced Technology, University of Science and Technology of China was founded.

In recent years, the University of Science and Technology of China is ranked in the world's top 100 universities in the most-widely read university rankings in the world such as the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE) and the QS World University Rankings (QS). Regarding research output, the Nature Index 2020 ranks the university No.1 in China & the whole of Asia and the Oceania region and 4th in the world among the global universities (after Harvard, Stanford, and MIT). Because of its dominant leadership position and reputation in Science & Engineering research, USTC is often being described as “the Caltech of China”.