Beijing Normal University is a staunch force in the nation’s research effort in the humanities and social sciences and in technology innovation. The university houses four key state laboratories (2 joint ones), 8 Ministry of Education key laboratories, 9 Beijing Municipality key laboratories, 5 Ministry of Education engineering research centers, 2 Beijing Municipality engineering and technology centers, and 7 key research bases in the humanities and social sciences of the Ministry of Education. The university regularly publishes 15 professional journals.
　
Renowned for its rich educational resources, Beijing Normal University is one of the national bases for talent development of high quality and creativity. It houses 2 national bases for a basic foundation for talents and scientific research in the arts, 5 national bases for a basic foundation for scientific research and teacher development in the sciences, 5 innovative exemplary laboratories for human resource development of the Ministry of Education, and 3 national exemplary centers for experimental education. The school also has a national base for talent training in the life sciences and technology, a national base for the teaching of Chinese as a second language and a national base for university students in quality-oriented education.

Beijing Normal University has a reasonably structured high-quality faculty team. At present, there are 3,100 teachers and staff on the main campus of whom 2,000 are full-time instructors. The number of BNU teachers with senior titles, doctoral degrees and/or overseas learning/working experience puts the school at the forefront among Chinese universities. There are 8 academicians from the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Engineering, 12 academicians employed simultaneously by the two academies, 2 emeritus professors, 5 senior professors, 19 Cheung Kong scholar chair professors, 3 chair professors, 34 chief experts for the Marxism Theoretical Research and Development Project, 32 winners of the China National Foundation awards for distinguished young scientists, 20 candidates for the Outstanding Talents Projects, 1 member of the Academic Degree Commission of the State Council (ADCSC), 16 members of the Discipline Appraisal Team from the ADCSC, 154 winners of Inter-millennium and New Century Talents awards supported by the Ministry of Education, 7 winners of the National Famous Teachers awards, 4 National Innovation Research Groups and 3 Subject Innovation and Talent Introduction groups for higher education institutions launched by the Ministry of Education and the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, P.R. China.

Beijing Normal University promotes broad international cooperation and exchange, having signed cooperative agreements with nearly three hundred universities and research institutes from more than thirty nations and regions and exchanging students through cooperative programs with over fifty universities from places that include the United States, the UK, Japan, South Korea and Canada. Moreover, BNU has co-established 7 Confucius Institutes, with: the University of Manchester (UK), San Francisco State University (US), the University of Oklahoma (US), Dawson University (Canada), Sherbrooke University (Canada), Aalborg University, Denmark, University of Macerata, (Italy) and the College of William and Mary (US). Long-term and short-term international students from over 94 countries and regions are studying at BNU, with 1,800 autumn-registered long-term international students, of whom 76% are pursuing academic degrees.

The 12th Party Congress of Beijing Normal University set out the development objective to build BNU into a world-class university by the middle of the century. BNU vows to – during the implementation of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan of China – adhere to the work principle of “human-oriented reform and innovation, optimizing structure, giving prominence to special features and enhancing quality,” holding fast to a strategy of enhancing education quality and following a development philosophy that emphasizes connotation, innovation and specializing and that is open to building the school into a world renowned university, and with a series of key projects that includes: Developing BNU by Ensuring a Quality Project and Strengthening BNU with a Talents Project, a Discipline Development Project, an Internationalization Project, an Institutional Innovation Project, a Condition Insurance Project and a CPC Construction Innovation Project.