Nanjing Institute of Physical Education was founded in 1956, which was formed by the merger of Nanjing Sports School, Jiangsu Normal University's physical education specialty course and Jiangsu Province's sports cadre training course. It is the only independent sports college and an important provincial competitive sports training base in Jiangsu Province. The provincial key construction colleges directly under the Jiangsu Provincial Sports Bureau and the Jiangsu Provincial Education Department are known as the "cradle of world champions".

There are 12 units in school education and teaching, including physical education department, sports department, sports health science department, national sports and performance department, leisure sports department, football college, graduate department, athletes' education and teaching management department, social science department, continuing education department, affiliated schools and Olympic college (private mechanism), and there are 14 undergraduate majors, involving education, literature and management.