The School of Environmental Science and Engineering (SESE) of Huazhong University of Science and Technology has the Department of Environmental Engineering, the Department of Water Supply and Drainage Science and Engineering, the Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering, and the Institute of Environmental Science. It offers three national-level undergraduate majors in the "Double Ten Thousand Plan", i.e., environmental engineering, water supply and drainage science and engineering, and building environment and energy engineering. It has a first-level doctoral degree authorization point and a post-doctoral research station in environmental science and engineering. It has a professional doctoral degree point in "Resources and Environment". It has four second-level doctoral degree authorization points in environmental science, environmental engineering, municipal engineering, heating, gas supply, ventilation and air conditioning engineering, and a doctoral degree authorization point in civil engineering with municipal engineering, HVAC and gas engineering directions.
The first-level discipline of environmental science and engineering is one of the first batch of first-level key disciplines in Hubei Province. It includes two provincial and ministerial key laboratories (Hubei Engineering Laboratory for Solid Waste Treatment, Disposal and Resource Utilization Technology, Key Laboratory of Water Supply and Drainage of the Ministry of Construction), one provincial-level teaching demonstration center (Hubei Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center for Environment and Architecture), and one provincial-level engineering technology research center (Hubei Water Quality Safety and Water Pollution Control Engineering Center). At present, there are 81 faculty members in the school, including 26 professors, 27 associate professors, and 8 lecturers. Among them, there are 10 people in the "Huazhong Outstanding Scholars Program". Academician Mark Robert Wiesner and John C. Crittenden of the National Academy of Engineering of the United States are appointed as honorary professors.
SESE adheres to Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as guidance, firmly grasps the major development opportunities of the country's ecological civilization construction, closely focuses on the fundamental task of cultivating people with morality, and establishes the development concept of "leading the overall situation with Party building and concentrating on seeking development". It has achieved remarkable results in discipline construction. The discipline of environmental science and engineering is a characteristic discipline of our school's "double first-class". It has the advantageous characteristics of interdisciplinary research and infiltration in multiple disciplines and fields with extensive cooperation with fields such as materials, machinery, energy, life, and chemistry in our school. It forms a new environmental science and engineering system that closely combines production, learning, and research. Three key development directions have been determined: water environment and ecology, solid waste treatment and soil remediation, and atmospheric environment and indoor air quality.
The world ranking of environmental science and ecology is steadily rising from the top 1% globally to 3‰. The international influence of the environmental discipline is increasingly prominent. In the professional ranking of world universities by Soft Power for two consecutive years, environmental science and engineering has entered the top 100 globally and ranks 11th among domestic universities. In the professional ranking of world universities by Times Higher Education, it has been selected as A+ in mainland China universities for two consecutive years. It has won six provincial and ministerial-level awards such as the first prize of Hubei Technology Invention Award, the third prize of Hubei Science and Technology Progress Award, and the first prize of Guangdong Science and Technology Progress Award. The discipline level is entering a period of rapid development, and is gradually approaching the goal of entering the top 15 in terms of comprehensive strength of environmental disciplines in China.
SESE actively explores the all-staff education pattern of "one core, two wings and two drives" in student cultivation. It adheres to the development of morality, intelligence, physical education, aesthetics, and labor. The evaluation rate of excellent study style classes, the proportion of students participating in social practice and technological innovation, the rate of undergraduate students going abroad for exchanges, and the number of provincial and national-level college students' innovation and entrepreneurship training projects approved continue to rise. It has won more than 60 discipline competition awards including the national gold medal of the "Challenge Cup", the national special prize of the "Deep Water Cup", the first prize of the national CAR-ASHARE competition, the first prize of the "Ren Huan Award", and the first prize of Track B of the Fifth National Green Building Skills Competition for Colleges and Universities.
SESE actively expands foreign exchanges. It specially sets up the "Environmental Lecture Forum" and regularly invites 8-10 well-known high-level experts in the environmental field at home and abroad to give academic reports. It uses various overseas expert funding plans of the school to invite professors from top 50 universities in the world, editors-in-chief or deputy editors-in-chief of international renowned journals, overseas academicians and other high-level scholars to come to the school for academic exchanges and expand overseas international exchanges and cooperation. At the same time, it offers international high-level courses for graduate students and relies on overseas high-level teaching staff to carry out course teaching.
This school has successively established good scientific research cooperation relationships with many universities, research and development institutions and well-known enterprises in the United States, Germany, Japan, France, the Netherlands, Singapore and other countries and Hong Kong and Macao regions. In terms of student cultivation, it has established a regular overseas exchange program and regularly organizes students to go to overseas cooperative universities for study and exchanges to broaden students' international horizons.
