The 985 plan will build the first batch of nine universities (namely, nine-university alliance), namely, Peking University, Tsinghua University, China University of Science and Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Xi Jiaotong University, Nanjing University, Zhejiang University and Harbin Institute of Technology.

985 Program Colleges and Universities, commonly known as "985 Colleges and Universities", refers to the educational plan implemented by the people and the Ministry of Education of China in order to build a number of world-class universities and a number of world-famous high-level research universities. The name comes from Jiang Zemin's idea at the centennial celebration of Peking University in May 1998, which includes 39 top universities so far.