School of Materials Science and Engineering (hereinafter called SMSE), with a history dating back to the 1950s, is developed from the traditional advantage majors in South China Institute of Technology (predecessor of SCUT).
After decades of development, SMSE is now composed of several parts: 6 Departments, 1 State Key Laboratory (State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices), 1 National Engineering Research Center (National Engineering Research Center for Tissue Restoration and Reconstruction), 27 Ministerial- and Provincial-Level International Collaborated Laboratories/Key Laboratories/Engineering Laboratories/Technical Research Centers, 1 National Demonstration Center for Experiment Teaching (Experiment Teaching Center for Materials Science and Engineering) and 1 National Virtual Simulation Experiment Teaching Center for Luminescent Materials and Devices.
The school has two doctoral programs of first-level disciplines: Materials Science and Engineering (national key discipline) and Biomedical Engineering, and four undergraduate majors, three of which are national first-class undergraduate majors. Material Science and Engineering was selected in the list of first-class disciplines in China’s “Double First-Class” university projects in 2017 and 2022. Material Science now has been ranked top 1‱ of ESI ( 0.122‰,2024).
The school has a strong faculty with 200 full-time teachers. Among them, there are 107 professors, 6 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences/Engineering, 16 Changjiang Distinguished Professors, 16 recipients of the National Outstanding Youth Fund, 28 national-level young talents, and 9 scientists were selected as World's Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate Analytics. In addition, SMSE has established long-term and stable cooperation with the relevant universities and scientific research institutes from the United States, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and so on. Currently, SMSE has an enrollment of 3551 students, including 1641 undergraduate students, 1231 graduate students, and 679 PhD candidates.
With a solid discipline foundation and interdisciplinary integration, SMSE plays an important role in supporting China’s S&T development strategy and insists on “promoting engineering with science”. It focuses on a wide variety of characteristic disciplines including Material Physics, Chemistry, Polymer Materials and Processing Engineering, Photoelectric Materials, Metal Materials and Processing Engineering, and Inorganic Non-metallic Materials. SMSE is known for its outstanding scientific research strength and achievements, which can be reflected by its more than 80 scientific awards, including 2 Second Prizes of the National Natural Science Award, 3 Second Prizes of the National Technological Innovation Award, 2 First Prize of Natural Science in Colleges and Universities of the Ministry of Education, 2 First Prize for Technical Invention in Colleges and Universities of the Ministry of Education and 15 First prizes in Science and Technology of Guangdong.
SMSE has been adhering to the excellent academic tradition, and endeavoring to create a good working environment and learning atmosphere for all teachers and students, and has made continuous progress in talent training, scientific research, social service, and cultural heritage. It has cultivated tens of thousands of materials professionals for the country.
At present, SMSE is making continuous efforts to promote the construction of world-class disciplines solidly and build an educational and research institution in the field of materials with international influence. SMSE aims to make new contributions to scientific progress and industrial development and push the scientific development and technological progress in future strategic new materials in China.
((Updated in November 2024)
