The guiding principle of SUFE's scientific research is to "serve the development of academic disciplines to aggressively promote economic construction”. During the “11th Five Year Plan” the University will uphold these principles, while focusing on the goal of scientific research prescribed in the plan and accelerating reform of the research system. SUFE faculty have become increasingly enthusiastic in undertaking scientific research, thus boosting its level of quality and its impact on society. Since the year of 2004, the university has undertaken 1560 projects of various kinds among which 108 projects were funded by the National Natural Science Foundation and the  National Social Science Foundation. 4295 papers and reports have been published including 260 papers published in top international academic journals and the top journals of China. From 2004, teachers of SUFE published enormous papers in top journals, like the Annals of Statistics, American Economic Review, The Accounting Review, Journal of Economics, Economic Research Journal and Social Sciences in China. And the teacher from SUFE whose paper published in The Accounting Review becomes the first one to publish paper in this magazine among mainland’s scholars. 90 prizes have been won at the ministerial and provincial levels. The university has hosted 43 academic conferences with major international influence. Over 200 academic reports have been given by well-known international and domestic scholars at the university. RMB 50 million Yuan in research funds has been obtained and great progress has been made in the construction of key research bases and in the development of major academic disciplines.
     The university's function of serving the development of academic disciplines and aggressively promoting economic construction has clearly been strengthened. The C Plan research project on “the World Expo and A New Round of Development in Shanghai” undertaken by SUFE has provided valuable theoretical bases for the Shanghai Municipal CPC Committee and Government in their creation of the development plan and was greatly appreciated by the Municipal leaders. SUFE has also strengthened the study of basic theories and produced a number of high quality research results, especially with regard to publishing papers in top international journals, thus facilitating the construction of major research bases and major academic disciplines. At present the university has 1 national key research base, 3 national key disciplines and 3 Shanghai Municipal key disciplines.
     SUFE has fostered many young scholars through those projects. A new generation of scholars full of innovative spirit has become the backbone of the university's academic research, laying a solid foundation for its future development. Academic exchanges have been further strengthened and the academic atmosphere has become increasingly enlivened. Additionally, research management has been further improved and research systems and mechanisms have been perfected, greatly enhancing the level of research management.

     With the current investment in the development of major disciplines,  key research bases, and a relatively complete structure of research, an organizational framework for industrial and university cooperation has been established at SUFE. Important social influence include the Ministry of Education's Key Research Base in Humanities and Social Sciences: the Institute of Accounting and Finance and the University's key research bases: the Institute of Marxism, the Institute of World Expo Economy, the Center for Modern Financial Studies, the Center for Regional Economic Studies, the Center for Public Policy Studies, the Center for Modern Marketing Studies, the Center for Economic Philosophy Studies, the Center for Applied Statistic Studies, the Center for Research on Shanghai School of Economics and the center for top500 enterprises. They have laid a solid organizational foundation.