School of Biological Food and Environment has evolved from the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering founded in 1980, one of the earliest departments of the University, which is also one of the key schools to have established educational cooperation with Lower Saxony, Germany. It currently has 3 departments: Department of Bioengineering, Department of Environmental Engineering, and Department of Food Engineering; 2 platforms: Hefei Institute of Environmental Engineering and Advanced Bio-manufacturing Center; and 1 Experimental and Practical Training Center. The School has 4 undergraduate programs, namely, Bioengineering, Environmental Engineering, Food Science and Engineering, and Food Quality and Safety, and 2 Master Degree programs: Resources and Environment, Biology and Medicine. There are all together 1065 students on campus including 7 international students.
Currently the School has 69 faculty members, including 17 professors, 12 associate professors, 2 researchers, and 4 senior experimenters. The proportion of full-time teachers with senior professional titles is 50.72%, and that with Doctoral degree is 79.31%. Besides, there are 4 German visiting professors, 3 domestic visiting professors, and 1 rehired professor from University of Science and Technology of China. Among the teachers, 1 has been entitled “National Outstanding Teacher for Vocational Education”, 1 “Anhui Provincial Outstanding Youth”, 2 “Anhui and Yangtze River Delta Young Scholar”, 4 “Anhui Provincial Renowned Teacher”, 2 “Academic Leaders in Universities in Anhui”, 1 “Top Scientific and Technological Talent in Universities in Anhui”, 2 “Anhui Provincial Outstanding Young and Middle-aged Backbone Teacher”, and 4 “Anhui Provincial Outstanding Young Teacher”.
The School has 31 specialized laboratories, 8 public laboratories, and 6 platforms for teachers research, with the total construction area of approximately 5000 square meters. 5 provincial-level scientific research platforms have been established, including Anhui Provincial Solid Waste Energy Utilization Engineering Technology Research Center and Anhui Provincial Key Laboratory for Bio-additive Manufacturing. Teaching faculty’s research has fruitful achievements, which are witnessed by 2 key research and development projects sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, 7 projects funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China, and 51 provincial and ministerial projects, 83 academic papers in core journals in China and abroad, over 165 authorized national patents, 2 Second Prizes of National Science and Technology Progress Award, 3 provincial Second Prizes, and 4 Third Prizes. The School has hosted successfully the 6th and 7th International Conference on Environmental Technology and Knowledge Transfer (ICET), as well as the China-South Korea Seminar.
The School has been one of the first schools to undertake graduate education with 556 graduate students (including 9 international students) admitted by December 2022. The Master’s program of Resources and Environment has 4 concentrations: Wastes Treatment, Disposal and Resources Utilization, Water Pollution Monitoring and Control, Air Pollution Control Technology, and Environmental Ecology and Restoration Engineering. The Master’s program of Biology and Medicine currently has 3 concentrations: Biotechnology and Engineering, Pharmaceutical Engineering, and Food Engineering. Focusing on the University’s orientation of “Locality, Application and Internationalization”, and to meet the needs of regional economic development, our Master Degree programs, sponsored by the Sino-German Educational Cooperation Demonstration Base, are devoted to in-depth industry-education integration and talent joint-cultivation, cooperating with 13 units such as the German ALBA Group, Osnabruck University of Applied Sciences (Germany), University of Rostock (Germany), Gottingen University of Applied Sciences (Germany), Incheon National University (South Korea), Institute of Process Engineering of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Hefei Institute of Materials Science of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The University’s orientation also helps our students to have won more than 110 provincial and municipal awards in the past 5 years, including one national Bronze Award in the 6th “International College Students’ Internet+ Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition”, and the Gold Award in the 12th “Challenge Cup” College Students’ Entrepreneurship Plan Competition, which is a historic breakthrough for Hefei University.