The University upholds the motto of Pursuit of Integrity, Practice and Cross-cultural Learning and defines as its mission the education of high-caliber citizens through the integration of content studies and foreign language training for globally minded graduates with international vision and social responsibility. The University serves over 20,000 full-time undergraduate students, nearly 3,000 graduate students and over 12,000 international and continuing-education students. It is one of the 19 universities worldwide qualified to provide high-end translation professionals to the United Nations and the only foreign studies-oriented university in the CAMPUS Asia program. With its undergraduate students admitted in the first-round or early admission category through college examination system, the graduation index of this University’s graduates ranked top among the universities across China

GDUFS is home to one national key research center for humanities and social sciences, 4 provincial-level key research centers and Guangdong Research Institute on International Strategies, a think-tank for the government of Guangdong Province. The University publishes four academic journals of national impact: Modern Foreign Languages, International Economics & Trade Research, Journal of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, and Journal of Strategy & Decision-Making.

GDUFS is active in a full range of international cooperation and exchanges in education. To date, it has ties with 268 universities and academic/cultural institutions in 38 countries or regions. The University has co-established three Confucius Institutes overseas in Japan, Russia and Peru.

With its educational philosophy of “whole-person education and pursuit of excellence”, the University vigorously pursues the internationalization of its faculty, students, academic research and management in order to be a high-tier internationalized university of excellence.