 The project involves both national and local governments allocating large amounts of funding to certain universities in order to build new research centers, improve facilities, hold international conferences, attract world-renowned faculty and visiting scholars, and help Chinese faculty attend conferences abroad.According to the Academic Ranking of World Universities 2018/19 and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2019/20, most of these 39 universities in Project 985 are considered as among the top 500 universities in the world.In 2009, the original 9 founding member universities of Project 985 formed the C9 League, which is referred to as the Chinese equivalent of the US Ivy League.