Project 211 (Chinese: 211工程; pinyin: 211 gōngchéng) is a project of National Key Universities and colleges initiated in 1995 by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, with the intent of raising the research standards of high-level universities and cultivating strategies for socio-economic development. During the first phase of the project, from 1996 to 2000, approximately US$2.2 billion was distributed. The name for the project comes from an abbreviation of the 21st century and 100 (approximate number of participating universities).