Institute of European Civilization (IEC) is a professional research institutional entity and with accredit of doctorate and master’s degree confirmation in the first level discipline of world history. It is the former Research Center for European Economic-Social History founded in 1999 and changed to current name in 2010. Based on IEC, the subject of world history of TJNU has been listed the key disciplines of the Eleventh Five-year plan, the Twelfth Five-year plan and the Thirteenth Five-year plan and the Disciplines with Top Priority of Tianjin. It has also been approved as key research base in humanities and social sciences of theuniversities in Tianjin. IEC is the institute of the secretariat of the Chinese Research Association of World Ancient and Medieval History and one of the centers for research and nurturing talents in world history.

Institute of European Civilization has an academic team of both scale and quality. There are thirty-four professionals and all with doctoral degree.The staff include 15 professors, 8 associate professors, 11 lecturers and 3 external scholars. Professor Hou Jianxin, the dean of the institute, is the convener of the World History Group under the Academic Degree Committee of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, the president of Chinese Research Association of World Ancient and Medieval History and expert of assessing panels of the National Social Science Fund of China. Professor Liu Jinghua, an influential scholar in British urban history, is the vice president and Secretary-General of Chinese Research Association of World Ancient and Medieval History. Professor Wang Yaping is an expert in German History and occupied the vice president of China Association of German History Studies. Professor Ha Quan’an, Professor Zhang Naihe, Professor Xu Bin and Professor Gu Yanfang have made valuable contributions in thestudy of Islam civilization and Arabic history, company system in modern England, European banking about the industry and transferring of rural labor. There are four research groups under the institute, namely, Research Group of Medieval Europe and Social Transition, Research Group of Classical Civilization, Research Group of Modern Europe, and Research Group of Comparative Civilization. It also covers the study on thehistory of Korea, Russia, Japan and Egypt.

The academic ideal of IEC is to give comprehensive interpretation of European civilization based on the perspective of Economic and Social History. It put emphasis on history of the masses, concept and rights, long-term history and the transition period.From the Seventh Five-year Plan, the Institute has undertaken more than 20 projects in national social science foundation and achieved many masterpieces from them. The projects included A Comparative Study of Medieval Chinese and European Civilizations (Chinese Academy of History’s Chinese National Social Science Fund on Major Historical Issues Research), Thematic Studies of Historical Bibliography of British Economic and Social History and The Process of Rural Urbanization in Europe and Its Reference to China (Major Project for Philosophy and Social Science Research of the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China). Institute of European Civilization has published more than 30 treatises in economic and social history, includes Series of European Economic and Social History. The translation of The New Cambridge Medieval History and other foreign masterpieces in economic and social history and the articles published on Social Sciences in China, Historical Research and other domestic and foreign journals have made leading effect in the study of world history and won academic acclaim and awards. Founded in 2005, Economic and Social History Review has been approved as journal of ISSN and CN and published in 2015. It was listed in CSSCI and has become an important academic platform of the discipline. IEC founded a dual degree undergraduate major in world history and foreign language with Department of History and Culture of TJNU. It formed a systematic training system for undergraduate, master's, doctoral and postdoctoral studies. The undergraduate major of world history has won First-class Undergraduate Construction Site of Ministry of Education.

The Institute also participated in the dictating of the world history curriculum standards for compulsory education of Ministry of Education. The history textbook for middle school edited by IEC has been published nationally to serve basic education. The institute covers an area of more than 2,400 square meters and equipped with a library of foreign languages of the discipline and an academic website. It is also the sponsor of the Chinese World Medieval History Research Network.