Institute of Urban and Regional Economics was established on 2002. The regional economics discipline of it is one of the three national key disciplines in the fields of regional economics of China. It has the distinctive honor of the unique national innovation Centre for regional economics of social science, which is supported financially by 985 project initiatives of China Education Department.

The institute was established by merging of two doctoral programs which are the economic geography and the urban economics respectively .The former was established by Professor Juemin Bao in the early 1930s. It was one of the two key doctoral programs of economic geography in China during that time. It was also the National Research Center for Oceania Economic Geography. The later was established by Professor Xiaozhen Cai in the early 1980s and was the first master and doctoral program of urban economics of China.

The research interests of the faculty of this institutes focus on basic theories of regional economics, regional economic development, regional policies, urban economy and urban governance and urban planning. It had already published many high impact monographs and papers. It takes the leading role in the fields of theoretical research of China social science, talent cultivation, and providing advisory report as top think tank of China, It is also very famous in the fields of regional and urban economics of the international research community.

The institute has established cooperative relations with different tier of China government. It provides advisory reports for central as well various levels of local governments which were adopted for decision-making and tackling major economic development problems of China. At the same time, the institute has some academic exchanges program with some famous universities and colleges around the world such as Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Toronto, the Australian National University, Heidelberg University Korea University, the National University of Singapore.