Introduction to the School of 

Energy and Environmental Engineering

The School of Energy and Environmental Engineering at Hebei University of Engineering, formerly known as the Department of Thermal Energy and Environmental Engineering, was established in 1985. It underwent several name changes before becoming the School of Energy and Environmental Engineering in August 2016, marking a history of nearly 38 years.

Currently, the school offers four undergraduate programs:Building environment and energy application engineering, Water Supply and Drainage Science and Engineering, Environmental Engineering, and New Energy Science and Engineering. The Building environment and energy application engineering program, originally focusing on heating, gas supply, ventilation, and air conditioning engineering, admitted its first associate degree students in 1985 and its first undergraduate students in 1989. The Water Supply and Drainage Science and Engineering program, originally focusing on water supply and drainage engineering, admitted its first associate degree students in 1985 and its first undergraduate students in 1988. The Environmental Engineering program admitted its first undergraduate students in 1997, and the New Energy Science and Engineering program admitted its first undergraduate students in 2012. The school offers a master's degree program in Environmental Science and Engineering, and two secondary disciplines, Heating, Gas Supply, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Engineering, and Municipal Engineering, granting master's degrees. It also offers two professional degree fields, Municipal Engineering (including water supply and drainage) and Artificial Environment Engineering (including heating, ventilation, and air conditioning), as well as one professional degree field in Environmental Engineering under the category of resources and environment.

The school currently has 80 faculty members, including 71 full-time teachers. Among them, 45 hold doctoral degrees and 33 hold master's degrees. There are 12 professors and 15 associate professors, forming a teaching and research team with a reasonable structure of professional titles and education backgrounds. The school has a significant advantage in talent cultivation, scientific research, and faculty structure compared to similar disciplines in provincial universities. Among the faculty members, there is 1 outstanding teacher in Hebei Province, 2 outstanding young talents in Hebei Province, 3 third-level candidates of the "333 Talents Project" in Hebei Province, 1 outstanding young talent funded by the Hebei Provincial Outstanding Youth Fund, 1 recipient of the "May 1st Labor Medal" in Handan City, 1 labor model in Handan City, 1 winner of the "Youth Star" in Handan City, and 1 member selected for the core counselor talent pool of universities in Hebei Province.

Guided by Xi Jinping's Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, the Party Committee of the school adheres to the fundamental task of cultivating talents for the Party and the country, comprehensively improving the quality of talent cultivation, and unwaveringly adhering to the fundamental task of moral education. The development concept of "teaching-oriented, research-strong, and characteristic-driven" is incorporated into the entire process of talent cultivation, scientific research, and characteristic development. The Party Committee of the school has been repeatedly recognized as an advanced grass-roots party organization. The Party Committee of the school, the Graduate Student Party Branch, and the First Faculty Party Branch have been selected as benchmark units for party building work, model branches for party building work, and studios for the secretaries of the "double-leading" teachers' party branches.

The school has an Energy and Environmental Engineering Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center (Provincial level), Hebei Provincial HVAC Engineering Technology Innovation Center, Hebei Provincial Water Pollution Control and Water Ecological Restoration Technology Innovation Center, and Hebei Provincial Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Pollution Causes and Impacts, among other research and experimental platforms. These platforms fully meet the needs of teaching and scientific research. The school closely follows the school's "modern engineering" educational philosophy, focuses on cultivating students' practical abilities, and has established 48 student internship bases in Beijing, Xian, Qingdao, Handan and other places. It has also built a pipeline engineering internship and training base on campus, which can meet the requirements of various practical teaching activities in the student training plan.

In recent years, the school has undertaken more than 20 teaching and research projects at the university level and above, as well as graduate education reform projects. The basic course "Hydraulics" in the Water Supply and Drainage Science and Engineering program was awarded the title of "High-quality Course" in Hebei Province. The faculty members have authored or co-authored 20 textbooks.

Adhering to the principle of "based in Hebei, serving the local area, and facing the whole country," the faculty members of the school have led or participated in more than 120 national and provincial research projects in the field of water pollution control and governance, national natural science funds, Hebei Provincial natural science funds, Hebei Provincial key research and development projects, and horizontal scientific research projects in cooperation with enterprises. They have published nearly a hundred papers indexed by the three major retrieval systems and have won 5 first, second, and third prizes for scientific and technological progress in Hebei Province, as well as more than 10 first, second, and third prizes for scientific and technological progress in Handan City. The faculty members actively engage in basic and applied research and technological development, gradually forming research directions with distinct characteristics, such as geothermal heat pump technology, building energy conservation, drinking water treatment and security, sewage treatment and resource utilization, rainwater utilization and resource utilization, sponge city construction, watershed water environment improvement, and causes and impacts of atmospheric pollution.

Adhering to the motto of "Virtue, Excellence, and Innovation," the school encourages undergraduate students to engage in scientific and technological innovation. They have won nearly 20 provincial awards in competitions such as the "Challenge Cup." In the past three years, they have won first prizes in two works and second prizes in one work in the Hebei Provincial College Students' Entrepreneurship Competition, as well as third prizes in 12 works. In the past four years, students from our school have been awarded three national-level projects and 11 provincial-level projects in the National College Students' Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program. In recent years, our students have won national awards such as the "People-Environment Cup," the National BIM Application Graduation Design Competition for University Students, the National College Student Mathematical Modeling Competition, and the American Mathematical Contest in Modeling. The Building environment and energy application engineering program has been awarded the title of "School Combining Competition and Practice" by the Higher Education Discipline Guidance Committee of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. The Student Affairs Office and the Communist Youth League Committee of the school have been awarded the titles of Advanced Collective for Ideological and Political Education of College Students in Hebei Province, Advanced Unit for Student Work in Hebei Province, Excellent Communist Youth League Committee in Handan City, and "May Fourth" Red Flag Communist Youth League Committee. Graduates of the school, adhering to the spirit of "self-improvement, hard work, tolerance and harmony, and pioneering and enterprising," have been highly praised by employers for their practical and diligent work.

The school currently has 1,206 undergraduate students and 192 graduate students. It has trained 6,379 undergraduate and associate degree graduates and 540 master's degree graduates. Many outstanding alumni have become backbone forces in government departments, enterprises and institutions, and teaching and research institutes, making positive contributions to social construction and development, and receiving recognition and praise from society.

(Data as of October 2024)