Northwestern Polytechnical University (NWPU, simplified Chinese: 西北工业大学;Russian: Северо-западный политехнический университет) is a University located in 127#, Youyi West Road, Xi'an, Shaanxi, People's Republic of China. NWPU was formally founded in October, 1957, and its predecessors were the National Northwestern Engineering College founded in 1938 and the Xi'an Institute of Aeronautics (formed by the Departments of Aeronautics of fomer National Central University, Jiaotong University and Zhejiang University). In 1970 the Aeronautical Engineering Department of PLA Institute of Military Engineering (Harbin) was merged into NWPU. NWPU is one of the 15 key universities supported directly by China's central government, and during the "Seventh Five-year Plan" and the "Eighth Five-year Plan", NWPU had been one of the universities of state capital construction. Specialized in aeronautical, astronautical and marine engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University is a China's top 10 technical university. Its research funding reached as high as RMB 1.67 billion in 2010 (0.26 billion USD), ranking 5th among all universities in China; funding per faculty member ranked 1st.