The University has established the national basic-course teaching bases in engineering (chemistry), the national undergraduates' cultural-quality education base, 7 national-level teaching teams, 6 bilingual model courses, 6 innovation experiment fields for talent cultivation, and 3 national model experimental teaching centers. In recent years, the University has had a lot of achievements, such as one Special Award, 3 First Prizes, 11 Second and Third Prizes in the National Teaching Achievement, and gained 25 national Excellent Courses. In the past fiveyears, students from Hunan University have won nearly 900 awards for the contests above provincial level, including first prize of the National Extracurricular Academic Science and Technology Work Competition, champion of the CCTV Cup English Speaking Contest, first prize of the Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM), and perseverance award of the Formula SAE.

Hunan University has been equipped with 2 state key laboratories, 1 national engineering technology research center, 5 key laboratories of the Ministry of Education, 5 provincial or ministerial-level engineering technology centers, 12 key laboratories of Hunan Province, and 13 provincial-level social science research bases of Hunan Province. In the past decade, it has undertaken around 9,000 scientific research projects at various levels, gained 1 second-class award of the national natural science, 1 national first-class award of the Science and Technology Advancement, 16 national second-class awards of the Science and Technology Advancement, 3 second-class awards of the Outstanding Achievements for Humanities and Social Sciences at Universities. Besides, technopark co., ltd. and 53 advance-level platforms for Enterprise-University-Research Institute have been set up, and the base of Enterprise-University-Research Institute Cooperation has been established in Lugu High-tech Industrial Park. The Enterprise-University-Research Institute Cooperation relationship has covered 32 provinces (districts, cities) and 400 plus enterprises.

The university has established academic exchanges with 104 universities and research institutes across the world. Experts recruited every year have come to over 300 for long or short terms. Long-term overseas students from over 40 countries and areas reach around 1000. Confucius Institute of Hunan University, jointly cooperated by Hunan University and Honam University, has become the first overseas Confucius institute set up jointly by Hunan province.

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, has always received great care and high appraise from the senior leaders of both the Central Government and local authority, such as Liu Shaoqi, Hua Guofeng, Hu Yaobang, Jiang Zemin, Zhu Rongji and Wen Jiabao, who came and inspected Hunan University and wrote the inscription of "Cradle of the Talents of Xiang and Chu", "The Kingdom of Chu, unique home of talents; today's academy of Yuelu, the prosperous cradle of all", and "Ancient Millenarian Academy, Famous Centennial University".