I. College profile

The School of Materials Science and Engineering consists of the departments of Metal Materials, Inorganic Non-metallic Materials, Material Physical and Chemistry, and Material Processing Engineering. Our facilities include the Key Laboratory of Green Fabrication and Surface Technology of Advanced Metal Materials, Ministry of Education, Anhui Key Laboratory of "Metal Materials and Processing" and Anhui Experimental Teaching Center for Material Science and Engineering. At present, we have 88 full-time academic staff, including 23 Professors, 33 Associate Professors, 13 doctoral supervisors and 72 master supervisors. Over the past 40 years, we have been striving to strengthen the undergraduate curriculum through continuous improvement of the caliber of our key academic disciplines. By upgrading the traditional basic material industry and fulfilling the complex needs of the new material industry, the school is contributing to scientific research and achievement on a national level.  

II. Undergraduate program construction

The school is directing the cooperation committee of materials undergraduate program in Anhui province. At present, it enrolls students according to four majors, namely Material Science and Engineering, Metal Material Engineering, Inorganic Non-Metallic Material Engineering, and Welding Technology and Engineering. In the past five years, the school has led a number of national research and educational projects and has won 5 provincial teaching achievement awards (including 1 grand prize and 2 first prizes).

III. General information of discipline

The discipline originated from the steel rolling major, which is a key discipline in East China established by the former Ministry of metallurgical industry in 1958. It began to culture master students in 1998, and obtained the right to confer master's degree in materials science and engineering in 2005 and doctor's degree in 2013. Both materials science and materials processing engineering are key disciplines in Anhui Province. It has been ranked in the top 1% in the world of ESI discipline rankings since 2015. It was selected into the first batch of "world first-class disciplines" and the first batch of "peak disciplines” in Anhui Province in 2017 and 2019, repectively. In 2019, it was approved to set up a research station for post-doctoral studies.

IV. Discipline streams and advantages 

The discipline has formed four forward-looking discipline streams: metal structural materials, clean energy materials, surface engineering materials and environment-friendly materials, benefiting from the characteristics of industry background and local requirements. The advantages of the discipline are as follows: 1) Good discipline foundation. The materials science and engineering major has passed the professional certification of engineering education and has been selected into national "first-class" discipline development site, together with material forming and control engineering major. The major of metal materials engineering has taken the lead in implementing the "outstanding talents education and training" plan. 2) Reasonable configuration of teachers. At present, there are 94 full-time teachers, including 33 professors, 23 doctoral supervisors, 26 people with national and provincial talent titles, and 48% of which have overseas study or enterprise work experience. 3) Good scientific research platform. At present, there are 10 national, provincial and ministerial level scientific research platforms, and more than 20 joint laboratories or engineering centers have been established with Baowu Masteel and Sinosteel Tianyuan etc. 4) Remarkable research achievements. The metal structural materials stream has won national second prize for progress in science and technology for two times. The clean energy materials stream has 13 papers been selected into highly cited papers of ESI. The surface engineering materials steam has won the first prize for progress in Anhui science and technology, and took charge of the formulation of seven international standards. 

V. Training objectives and students 

The discipline cultivates high-level and high-quality talents with high social responsibility and ‘craftsmanship spirit’ for the metal and new materials industry and economic field in Anhui and Yangtze River Delta. Students have the ability to independently undertake scientific research and solve complex engineering and technical problems in the industry. Meanwhile, they are competent for teaching and scientific research in colleges and universities and technological development in enterprises. The discipline recruits master and doctoral students from domestic and international regions and enrollment ratio of the master and doctoral students is about 1.2: 1 and 1.6: 1, respevctively. 

VI. Domestic and foreign reputation 

The discipline provides important talent support and knowledge contribution for regional economic development based on local and industrial requirements. The school of this discipline is the director unit of the Anhui Provincial Materials Professional Cooperation Committee and the secretariat of the PVD Coating International Standards Subcommittee. The students from the dicipline have excellent diligent and responsible characters. About 120 papers have been published annually in high-quality journals at home and abroad, such as Adv Funct Mater, Acta Mater and Acta Metall Sin. Since 2015, the discipline has entered into the top 1% of ESI global ranking, and currently ranked in the top of 0.5%. Overall, the discipline is in the forefront of provincial universities. (Up to Jun. 2024)