Suzhou Vocational Institute of Industrial Technology (SIIT), a model higher vocational college in Jiangsu Province，is a state-run college ratified by People’s Government of Jiangsu Province in 2003. Its predecessor can be traced back to the “Suzhou High-level Industrial Vocational School of Jiangsu Province” established in September 1946, which is the earliest industrial technical school in Suzhou.

SIIT is constituted of 10 teaching units, namely, Department of Precision Manufacturing Engineering, Department of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Software and Services Outsourcing College, Business Administration, Department of Architectural Engineering and Art Design, School of International Studies, Department of Automotive Engineering, Department of Ideological and Political Education, PE. Department. There are altogether 35 majors and around 8,000 full-time students in SIIT. In the recent five years, 7 new majors have been added, such as industrial robotics, intelligent control technology, intelligent product development, cloud computing technology, big data technology and applications. The large proportion of intelligent manufacturing specialty and the high concentration of specialized fields help to highlight its development edge over others: Mechatronics Technology has been awarded as the model construction major by Ministry of Education, and CNC technology major as the provincial college brand. Mechanical and electrical integration, industrial robots, CNC equipment application and maintenance, the application of electronic technology, software technology and other five majors have ranked among the construction of high-level backbone majors of Jiangsu Province. Cloud computing technology and applications, big data technology and application technology have become the outstanding new majors among colleges and universities in Suzhou.

In the college there are now 77 teachers with doctoral degrees ,who takes up 22% among the whole teaching faculty. The number of teachers with PhD ranks among the first-class among all the vocational colleges in the province. Among them, 61 PhD teachers teach in the field of intelligent manufacturing, contributing to the high concentration of personnel and highlighted group effects: in 2016, the industrial robotics and materials surface treatment technology team was awarded as the provincial “blue project” science and technology innovation team; in 2017, the intelligent equipment science and technology team won the competition as the provincial university science and technology innovation team, the numerical control technology teaching team was entitled as the provincial “blue project” outstanding teaching Team, intelligent manufacturing industry technology and talent development and research team were enlisted as the provincial philosophy and social innovation team. Class upon class talents emerge to conquer the peak of the mountain: during 2015-2017, college teachers successively enrolled in the provincial “Top Talents of Six Categories” for 18 times, provincial “333 Top Talents”, academic leaders of “Qing Lan Project” for nurturing young teachers in the province, provincial teaching masters, Provincial Labor Medal and other high-level talent lists.

The joint efforts on R&D of the college and intelligent manufacturing enterprises have generated remarkable achievements in collaborative innovation. In 2016, SIIT was awarded as “Jiangsu Province Intelligent Robot and Complete Equipment Innovation Center” by Jiangsu Economic and Information Commission and “Jiangsu Province Industrial Robot Engineering Laboratory” by Development and Reform Commission of Jiangsu Province. In 2016, it also won the third installment of “Jiangsu Provincial Industrial Robot Creation Space” by the Provincial Department of Science and Technology. From 2015 to 2017, the college won 13 projects of National Natural Science Foundation of China, Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China, Provincial Social Science Fund and Provincial Natural Science Program, with the number of projects crowns other higher vocational colleges in the province. 186 new intellectual property rights were authorized, of which 26 were invention patents, and the number of invention patents granted was higher than that of other higher vocational colleges in the province. The transferring of the possession of ten patents benefited enterprises with over 10 million yuan (RMB).

SIIT propels the teaching reform in a three-dimensional way—remodeling ideas, restructuring systems, reorganizing curriculum and teams, overlapping activities, re-diagnosing processes and innovating the mode of cooperation between education and industry, a key project of education and scientific planning and 26 provincial education reform major projects have been approved. There are 18 college-enterprise co-founded schools, a total of 6 “factories affiliated to school”, 2 provincial production and training integration training platforms, 118 cooperative teaching materials. SIIT won the excellent education institutions of national machinery industry school-enterprise cooperation. The school-enterprise cooperation for nurturing professionals has made remarkable progress, and the teaching reform has yielded fruitful results. In 2016, it won the Suzhou city Special Prize for Teaching Achievement. In 2017, it won one Special Prize and 2 First Prizes in the Jiangsu Province for Teaching Achievement, the award-winning grade and quantity ranking the forefront of the provincial higher vocational colleges; teacher’s inforlatization teaching competition ends in excellent results, ranking the province's first phalanx; the college won the outstanding organization award in the provincial informalization contest for three consecutive years.

SIIT has altogether 17 national level master skill studios, provincial public innovation spaces, provincial model studios and skills training centers. From 2014 to 2016, it won 6 first-class awards of outstanding graduation theses (designs) in Jiangsu Province for three consecutive years. The number of first prize ranks the top three in vocational colleges in the province. In 2017, it won 3 first-prize in the National Vocational College Skills Competition, the number of first prize ranking the top 4 among vocational colleges in the province; from 2015 to 2017, a total of 448 prizes were won in professional colleges and skills competitions and other types of competitions, including 20 first class awards in national skills competition, 23 second awards and 31 third awards. SIIT won the Jiangsu Provincial Vocational College Skills Competition “Outstanding Contribution Award” and Skills Competition “Advanced School” honor.

SIIT actively draws on the advanced experience of vocational education in Germany, Singapore, Canada, Australia and Taiwan of China—dispatching 189 teachers to study abroad, sending 86 students to go abroad for one semester of study trips, and holding Sino-foreign cooperation projects with the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and universities in other countries to have trained 430 students up to now. It also cooperated with some multinational corporations to introduce international advanced technology, and make the purchase of imported teaching equipment nearly 4 million US dollars, which was included in the 2014 Ministry of Education selected “DMG MS NC field of the second phase Enterprise Cooperation Project”. In 2016, it was enlisted into “Vocational Education Project of ABB and Xin Shida in the field of industrial robot” by Ministry of Education, and carried out international professional qualification certification such as AHK AEVO, Siemens NX CAD / CAM and PC-DIMS in Germany. During the years from 2014 to 2016, the college dispatched 21 teachers to the overseas staff training center of enterprises such as Suzhou Hengtong Group to undertake the training of international staff and eventually trained more than 1,200 international employees. It undertook the internship practice for international students in the province and accommodated over 180 international students.