Overview in School of Chemical Engineering and Pharmacy

Established in 1972, the School of Chemical Engineering and Pharmacy is one of the university's oldest and most distinguished colleges, renowned for its robust teaching and research capabilities. The School is guided by the principle of "assembling outstanding talents, building first-class disciplines, producing impactful research, and cultivating top-tier students."

Distinctive Program Offerings. The School offers four undergraduate programs: Chemical Engineering and Technology, Energy Chemical Engineering, Pharmaceutical Engineering, and Pharmaceutics. Among these, the first three are recognized as National First-Class Undergraduate Program Construction Sites, while Pharmaceutics is designated as Provincial First-Class Undergraduate Program in Hubei Province. The School takes pride in its educational resources, which include 1 nationally planned textbook, 2 National First-Class Courses, 2 National Quality Courses, and 2 National Premium Resource-Sharing Courses. It also leads the Virtual Teaching and Research Office for Chemical Engineering and Technology (Hubei Province) under the Ministry of Education. In addition, the School has received the Special Prize of the Hubei Provincial Teaching Achievement Award. At the provincial level, the School has developed 10 first-class undergraduate courses, two teaching teams, three Excellent Primary Teaching Organizations of Hubei Universities, one Provincial Innovation Base for College Students, two Provincial Demonstration Practice and Training Bases, and one Provincial Key Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center.

Robust Disciplinary Development. Chemical Engineering and Technology, a first-level discipline of the school, is the earliest discipline authorized to confer doctoral degrees in the university. The school has 2 first-level discipline master’s programs, 11 second-level discipline master’s programs and 1 postdoctoral research station, forming an integrated talent training system covering undergraduate, master’s and doctoral education. The school has built 12 disciplinary research platforms, including the Key Laboratory of Green Chemical Process of the Ministry of Education and the Hubei Key Laboratory of New Reactor and Green Chemical Technology. It also owns 5 provincial and ministerial-level scientific and technological innovation teams, among which the Mineral Processing Process Intensification team is the first team among provincial universities in Hubei Province to be included in the Ministry of Education’s Program for CJXZ and Innovative Research Teams. In addition, the school hosts 2 Hubei Collaborative Innovation Centers, focusing on Exploitation and Utilization of Medium and Low-grade Phosphate Rock Resources and Development and Process Intensification of Downstream Products of Ethylene Engineering.

Notable Research Achievements. The School has actively aligned itself with the national strategic emerging industries and the “51020” modern industrial system of Hubei Province, accelerated the cultivation of new productive forces, and conducted collaborative research to tackle the “bottleneck” problems in the fields of green chemical engineering, electronic chemicals, new energy materials and biomedicine, making significant contributions to serving national strategies and the development of local economy. The School has jointly built a number of R&D platforms with well-known enterprises, including the Joint Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Engineering, the Joint Laboratory of Catalytic Materials and Catalyst Engineering, and the Petrochemical Research Center. In recent years, the School has undertaken more than 300 projects, such as the preliminary research special projects of the National Key Basic Research and Development Program (the "973 Program"), the National Science and Technology Support Program, the key projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the Ministry of Education’s Program for CJXZ and Innovative Research Teams. It has also won more than 10 awards including the National Science and Technology Progress Award and the Hubei Provincial Science and Technology Progress Award.

Outstanding Faculty Team. The School implements a "Talent-Driven Development" strategy. Centering on the construction of first-class disciplines, the School has built well-structured teaching and research teams. It has formed a rational and dynamic academic echelon for disciplines and a professional talent training system, which is led by Chief Professors, with academic leaders as the core and research directions or professional teaching as the link. The echelon and system consist of Chief Professors, academic leaders and academic backbones.Currently, the School has a faculty of 133 full-time teachers, including 40 professors and 51 associate professors. Among them, there are 2 teachers entitled to national-level talent programs and 31 to provincial and ministerial-level talent programs. A total of 126 teachers hold doctoral degrees, and 58 have overseas or off-shore study experience.

Remarkable Talent Development.The School has steadily advanced the reform of its talent training model, characterized as “Two Types and Two Orientations”—fostering interdisciplinary and innovative talents with an international and engineering-oriented perspective. The approach emphasizes “Three Practices and One Innovation”, integrating practical training, laboratory experiments, professional internships, and innovation. The School has launched several reform-oriented experimental programs, such as the integrated major-minor program, Sino-foreign cooperative education programs, the Excellent Engineer Program, and the Hou Debang Class. In recent years, undergraduate students have won more than 100 national awards in academic competitions and innovation and entrepreneurship contests. The employment rate for graduates has remained above 98%, and the undergraduate further education rate has reached 46.9%. Many outstanding students have been recommended for or admitted to postgraduate programs at world-renowned universities, including Peking University, Tsinghua University, Fudan University, Zhejiang University, University of Science and Technology of China, Wuhan University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, National University of Singapore, University College London, University of Pennsylvania, University of Manchester, Columbia University, University of Minnesota, and the University of New South Wales. Over 10% of graduates have been employed by well-known chemical and pharmaceutical companies listed among the Global Fortune 500 or China's Top 100 enterprises. A significant number of distinguished alumni have become leading cadres, renowned scholars, entrepreneurs, and technical experts, earning the School the reputation as a “Cradle of High-Level Talents in Chemical Engineering.”