The Center for Studies of Chinese as a Second Language (CSCSL) of Beijing Language and Culture University, as a research institute entity, was established on March 11, 2000. In September, 2000, CSCSL was officially admitted to the “hundred key research bases of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education”.

As the only national key research base in the field of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language (TCSL), CSCSL of Beijing Language and Culture University serves the whole discipline of TCSL nationally and is open to the researchers and teachers of Chinese as a second language worldwide. It is the information center of the discipline and for the scholars,the key academic communication platform of research, teaching and getting the latest knowledge as well. The main missions of CSCSL are: doing research work on the teaching and learning of Chinese as Second Language, serving the discipline construction and the teaching practice of TCSL; focusing on the research work in cognition and acquiring laws of Chinese as a Second Language and the application of the research finding in the field of TCSL to improve the study of the theories in the discipline, the Language of Chinese and the teaching and learning theory; training loads of academic backbones and working together to undertake some important research projects; carrying out extensive communication and coordination with the academic circles nation-wide and world-wide.

CSCSL of Beijing Language and Culture University consists of the following departments: the Open Laboratory of Language Acquisition and Cognition, the Research Office of Language Teaching and Testing, the Research Office of Chinese Linguistic and Philology, The Research Office of Language Information Processing, the Research Office of Visiting Scholars, Information and Reference Room, the Editorial Department of Chinese Teaching in the world and the Administration Office. The staff includes 12 full-time researchers and 3 administrators. At present, the full-time researchers are undertaking 18 projects sponsored by the National Social Sciences Fund, the Ministry of Education, the National Office of Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, and Beijing Language and Culture University respectively.

CSCSL of Beijing Language and Culture University is now concentrating on the duties of scientific study, talents training, academic communication and consulting service. By innovative and steady work, it makes efforts to strengthen the leading academic position of Beijing Language and Culture University in the field of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language. The aims of CSCSL is, with 3 or 5 years, to achieve the advanced research level of the adjacent disciplines and bear a high international reputation in the field of the Second Language Teaching, and hence become a idea base, a talent base and a national key research base true to its name.

The Institute of Comparative Literature and Culture Studies (ICLCS) of Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU) was founded in January, 1998. It was changed to an independent research entity directly affiliated to the university in October 2001. ICLCS now has 5 researchers and 4 PhD. supervisors.

ICLCS is one of the research institutes that hold a key discipline in Beijing. Following three other universities, namely Peking University, Sichuan University and Suzhou University, ICLCS of BLCU is the fourth one that has been approved to have the qualification of establishing a Ph.D. program of Comparative Literature and World Literature Independently. In 2002, this program ranked as the top Ph.D, program in China among all the universities according to an investigation conducted by Guongdong Academy of Management Currently there are four Ph.D. supervisors working in different research areas in the institute:professors Goo Xudong, Ning Yizhong, Wang Ning and LI Qingben.

ICLCS, located in and affiliated to BLCU, is international in Its scope. It aims at crossing the borders of different disciplines and cultures, achieving communication with other disciplines, reconstructing itself and forming dialogues between the East and the West. Since 1998, ICLCS has held several international academic conferences published over 20 monographs and more than 300 academic articles.

Institute of  Applied Linguistics  aimed to devote its effort to the research and development of applied linguistics. Linguistics and applied linguistics both are the key national-level academic subjects of our university. And, the Applied Linguistics Re-search Institute is the first academic center for granting doctor's degree of these fields with the official approval of the Chinese government. This center is devoted to promoting the development of key national-level academic subjects of our university, boosting the development of applied linguistics in China, keeping step with the most advanced international development in digitizing, and contributing to engaging the application of spoken and written languages with the international standards.

“Digitizing” is the standard we held high as the jumping-off point in setting up the research institute. The Applied Linguistics Research Institute opens up the researches of digitalized applied linguistics and digitalized teaching Chinese as a foreign language toward the 21st century, undertakes the related national scientific research projects and international joint researches, recruits and educates master's degree candidates and doctoral candidates majoring in or relating to the language information processing, accepts domestic and international senior visiting scholars and graduate students whose research direction is related to the language information processing, and trains a new high-tech generation to master the digitalized technology. The Applied Linguistics Research Institute is also a training base for the teachers engaging in the digitalized teaching Chinese as a foreign language toward the 21st century in our university. The ‘Dr. DCC Research lab' in the research institute has already owned a ‘dynamic and circulating Chinese' corpus which contains 1 billion Chinese characters. We have started tracing the development trends and proceeding with the researches upon measuring on the changes of Chinese by using this corpus.

Found in 1985, BLCUP is a professional publisher affiliated to a higher educational institute under the direct administration of Ministry Education. BLCUP has different departments. Among them are the Administration Office, Editorial Departments, Production Department, Department of Book and Audio-Visual Product Distribution, Language Training Department, Marketing Department, Finance Department etc. Besides, Beijing language and Culture University Audio-Visual Publishing House and Center of Research and Department of TCFL textbooks and affiliated to BLCUP. There are more than 800 staff members, among them, 7 are senior editors.

With the prestigious teaching and Research faculty of BLCU as the powerful backing, BLCUP publishes academic works on linguistics, language and teaching and culture education mainly intended for second language learns. The major products include:
1.textbooks of Chinese as foreign language, textbooks of Chinese for oversea learners, and textbooks of Chinese for minority students;
2.foreign language materials for intensive training programs intended for those Chinese who are to go abroad, learning materials for tests of foreign languages and reading materials in foreign languages;
3.books to introduce Chinese culture and other publications in culture education;
4.academic works in linguistics and language teaching.
In 2000, under the approval of General Administration of Press and Publication BLCU Audio-Visual Press was established, aiming at the publication of audio and visual products to complement published Chinese and foreign textbooks.
BLCUP is a publisher that is foreign market-oriented. The language materials that we published have been used by hundreds and thousands of readers in China as well as all over the world and have been very well received. BLCUP has six editorial departments, which mainly develop language learning and teaching materials and audio-visual products. They are:
Department of Chinese Language Education for Foreigners
Department of Chinese Language Education for Overseas Learners
Department of Bilingual Education
Department of Foreign Language Education
Department of General Publications
Electronic and Audio-Visual Department