Abstract:Engineering Center is a cooperation platform for interdisciplinary that combines the engineering and technology research, engineering education, enterprise cooperation, and technology transfer. As a bridge and link of contacts and communication between research institutes and market, it is established at universities and research institutions. Taking the engineering centers in the United States as examples, this paper introduces 30 years of development and reform of the engineering centers in the United States in detail in perspectives of their origin background, development, funding, operations, and results achieved. At the same time, China’ s achievements of engineering center in promoting the commercialization and industrialization of technology transfer are introduced as well. It is also pointed out that the construction and operation of engineering centers in China do not adapt well to our economic and social development. Based on these introductions, the differences between China and US are analyzed in terms of strategic objective, organization operation, funding, enterprises to participate, and cultural construction. The causes forming these differences are found out, the experiences and lessons of construction and development of the engineering research center in China are considered thoroughly, and some suggestions for the future development are put forward.