On June 28th 2017, Shanghai Ranking's Global Ranking of Academic Subjects officially released, Food Science and Technology Discipline of South China University of Technology ranked No. 4 in the world, only one discipline entering the world top 10 disciplines within South China University of Technology.

The 2017 Shanghai Ranking's Global Ranking of Academic Subjects inculde 52 disciplines, covering five major fields: science, engineering, life science, medicine and social science. The target list is 4000 universities in the world, a total of 1400 universities from 80 countries, eventually appeared in the list of various disciplines. China has 162 universities on the list, the total list number of 1289 times. South China University of Technology has a total of 19 disciplines listed in the Ranking, including 1 subjects entering the world's top 10, and 3 disciplines into the top 50.

Shanghai Ranking's Global Ranking of Academic Subjects uses a series of internationally comparable indicators of global university academic performance in related disciplines, including scientific research, scientific research quality, the scale of international cooperation, a high level of scientific research and international awards etc..