Hebei University of Geosciences

Hebei University of Geosciences was founded in 1953. It is one of the five universities directly under the former Ministry of Geology. It is a university jointly established by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the People's Government of Hebei Province. It is a key provincial university. Li Tingdong, a geologist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, serves as the honorary president of the school.

As the first university directly under the former Ministry of Geology to set up economic management majors in New China, the school has always taken "providing talents and scientific and technological support for the sustainable development of resources and environment" as its core mission, adhering to the school motto of "optimism and knowledge", and carrying forward the glorious tradition of "hard work, truth-seeking and innovation". After nearly 70 years of school-running, the school has gradually formed the characteristics of "resources and environment" multi-disciplinary collaborative development and deep cross-integration.

Today, the university has seven major disciplines, including science, engineering, management, economics, law, literature, and art, and 67 undergraduate majors. In the "Promotion Plan for the Construction of First-Class Universities and First-Class Disciplines in Hebei Province (2021-2025)", the university is included in the sequence of Hebei Province to build a first-class university in China, and "Geology", "Geological Resources and Geological Engineering", and "Business Administration" are included in the scope of first-class discipline construction. Among them, the first-level discipline of "Geology" is listed as a key support discipline, and the two first-level disciplines of "Geological Resources and Geological Engineering" and "Business Administration" are listed as key cultivation disciplines. It has 9 provincial key disciplines and key development disciplines. In the Ministry of Education's "Double 10,000 Plan" for the construction of first-class undergraduate majors, six majors including geology, computer science and technology, groundwater science and engineering, accounting, land resources management, and tourism management have been selected as national first-class undergraduate major construction sites, and 15 majors including economics, economic statistics, law, information and computing science, geographic information science, gem and material technology, software engineering, civil engineering, hydrology and water resources engineering, exploration technology and engineering, resource exploration engineering, engineering management, business administration, marketing, and e-commerce have been selected as provincial first-class undergraduate major construction sites. The school has four national featured majors, namely resource exploration engineering, business administration, land resource management, and groundwater science and engineering; four national and provincial comprehensive reform pilot majors, namely computer science and technology, resource exploration engineering, accounting, and land resource management; it has four innovation highlands for undergraduate education in Hebei Province, namely, geological and mineral education innovation highlands, management education innovation highlands, water conservancy and hydropower education innovation highlands, and economic and trade accounting education innovation highlands; it has eight brand featured majors in Hebei Province, namely, resource exploration engineering, exploration technology and engineering, business administration, land resource management, groundwater science and engineering, hydrology and water resources engineering, international economics and trade, and accounting. The school has 11 first-level disciplines authorized to confer master's degrees, namely, geology, geological resources and geological engineering, environmental science and engineering, materials science and engineering, computer science and technology, applied economics, business administration, public administration, management science and engineering, law, and mathematics; it has 10 professional master's degree authorizations, namely, resources and environment, civil engineering and water conservancy, applied statistics, finance, business administration, public administration, accounting, engineering management, art, and electronic information; it has the right to confer master's degrees of equivalent academic qualifications. The school recruits students from 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the country, with about 18,000 full-time students. In 2016, the school became a doctoral degree authorization project construction unit.

The school currently has 988 full-time teachers, of which 49.9% have senior professional and technical positions and 50% have doctoral degrees. Among them, there are 80 experts with special government allowances from the State Council, outstanding experts under provincial management, young and middle-aged experts with outstanding contributions to the province, outstanding young experts in social sciences in the province, young top talents in the province, provincial "Three Three Three Talent Project", and provincial teaching masters. In recent years, the school has successively introduced a group of outstanding talents such as Liu Jiaqi, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mao Jingwen, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and Ji Qiang, a German Humboldt scholar and winner of the "National Outstanding Youth". The school also employs 187 part-time professors and visiting professors, including 14 academicians. Shang Guobei's public administration teaching team and Li Yingjie's geology teaching team were selected as the first and second batches of Huang Danian-style teaching teams in national universities respectively.

The school attaches great importance to improving its ability to ensure school operation. The library currently has 1.6 million books, more than 1,400 Chinese and foreign paper journals, and 3.9 million electronic books; it has two national experimental teaching demonstration centers, the Earth Science Experiment Center and the Economic Management Experiment Center, and five provincial experimental teaching demonstration centers, the Water Resources and Environment Experiment Center, the Jewelry and Mineral Processing Experiment Center, the Digital Land Experiment Center, the Physics Experiment Center, and the Entrepreneurship Virtual Simulation Experiment Teaching Center; the school has 243 internship and training bases at all levels; the school also has the Earth Science Museum and the Qianyuan Financial Museum, of which the Earth Science Museum is a national, provincial, and municipal popular science education base and quality education base.

The school has always adhered to the principle of cultivating people with moral integrity and teaching students in accordance with their aptitude. By comprehensively deepening the reform of talent training models and strengthening innovation and entrepreneurship education, it provides guarantees for the comprehensive development and personalized success of students. In the past five years, undergraduate students have completed 598 scientific research projects and published 828 scientific papers. They have won more than 300 national awards and more than 600 provincial awards in the "Chuang Qingchun" National College Student Entrepreneurship Competition, the "Challenge Cup" National College Student Extracurricular Academic Science and Technology Works Competition, mathematical modeling, advertising art, humanities knowledge, English competitions, rock climbing, football and other competitions. More than 100 students are awarded national and provincial honorary titles every year, and Tang Jianzhe, the "2012 Chinese College Student of the Year", was received by General Secretary Xi Jinping.

In order to promote student employment and improve the quality of employment, the school has built a "smart employment platform" on the basis of deepening teaching reforms, and achieved accurate push of employment information. Now there are 5,381 registered companies, including 270 Fortune 500 companies, 240 China Fortune 500 companies, and 710 listed companies, providing more than 50,000 jobs to students every year. The employment rate of graduates remains above 91%.

In recent years, the school has achieved fruitful scientific research results, and has won four national science and technology progress awards and national teaching achievement awards. In 2017, Professor Ji Qiang's team published two high-level academic papers in the same issue of "Nature" magazine; in June 2021, Professor Ji Qiang's article on the research of ancient human skulls was published in "The Innovation" magazine under "Cell" Publishing House, and officially named the Middle Pleistocene ancient human skull fossil as a new human species of the genus: "Dragon Man". The "Dragon Man" research results provide crucial evidence for the study of the origin of Homo sapiens and human evolution, and refresh the existing understanding of human origin and evolution history. Xinhua News Agency, People's Daily and other domestic mainstream media and important foreign media have widely reported on this major research result, calling this research result "the top ten scientific and technological achievements that shocked the world in 2021", "the six most groundbreaking discoveries in human prehistory", "five major events in the science and technology community in 2021", "nine major scientific events in 2021", and was selected as one of the "Top Ten Advances in Chinese Paleontology in 2021". The school has 14 provincial and ministerial scientific research platforms, including the "Key Laboratory of Intelligent Detection and Equipment for Underground Space in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Urban Agglomeration" of the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Information and Earth Exploration Technology of Hebei Province, the Collaborative Innovation Center for Sustainable Utilization of Water Resources and Optimization of Industrial Structure, the Research Base of Mineral Resources Strategy and Management of Hebei Province, the Hebei Engineering Research Center for Resource Utilization of Silicate Solid Waste, and the Collaborative Innovation Center for Strategic Key Mineral Research of Hebei Province, 18 school-level scientific research platforms, and 34 scientific research teams. It has provincial key laboratories such as Sustainable Utilization and Development of Water Resources, Optoelectronic Information and Earth Exploration Technology, and more than 130 professional laboratories, as well as 1 regional and country research center of the Ministry of Education. It has formed a scientific research team with solid theoretical foundation, rich practical experience, and strong scientific research and innovation spirit, and has condensed the research direction with the characteristics of resources, environment and economic management, and has built a development situation that emphasizes both theoretical basic research and applied research, and cross-integration of scientific research work in various disciplines.

The school continues to improve the open school-running pattern, providing strong support for the development of teachers and students and serving the country. The school has established friendly cooperative relations with more than 20 universities in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Germany, Russia, Australia, France, South Korea, the Czech Republic and other countries, and has widely carried out various forms of cooperation such as student exchange, mutual recognition of credits, mutual award of degrees, and scientific research cooperation. The school's Confucius Classroom at the Technical University of Ostrava in the Czech Republic, while actively spreading Chinese culture and serving the "Belt and Road" initiative, has also built a friendly bridge for teachers and students to communicate with Europe. Domestically, the school has successively carried out all-round strategic cooperation with dozens of universities, research institutes, enterprises and institutions such as the China Geological Survey, the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), the Hebei Academy of Social Sciences, the Hebei Provincial Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, the Hebei Provincial Coalfield Geology Bureau, the Shanghai Geological Survey, and Aerospace Information Co., Ltd., opening up a broad open space for school training and industry-university-research-application exchanges and cooperation.

Over the past 70 years, the school has trained nearly 200,000 graduates. Alumni who have worked and studied in the school are all over the world, covering all walks of life. Xu Deming, former vice minister of the Ministry of Land and Resources, Wu Qiang, Mao Jingwen, Xie Yuhong, academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Hou Zengqian, Cheng Qiumin, academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Liu Yongrui, former member of the Standing Committee of the Hebei Provincial Party Committee, Minister of the United Front Work Department, and Vice Chairman of the Provincial CPPCC, Li Yuansheng, leader of the Antarctic expedition team, Hu Jun, former president of Jinan University, Zhang Hong, winner of the Li Siguang Geological Science Award, Shen Xuhui, chief scientist of the "Zhang Heng No. 1" satellite project, Zhao Ziliang, former party secretary and president of Huaxia Life Insurance Company, Xu Changgui, exploration expert of CNOOC, Xu Zailiang, "National Engineering Survey and Design Master", Li Chunlai, who has successfully climbed Mount Everest many times, and Zhang Jinchang, the commander-in-chief of the 7018-meter deep drilling on the mainland, are outstanding representatives among them.

The construction and development of the school have received the cordial care and strong support of leaders at all levels. Mao Zedong, Hu Jintao, Xi Jinping and other party and state leaders have cordially received our teachers and students. Comrade Wen Jiabao presented the rock and mineral specimens he personally collected and the "Wen Jiabao Geological Notes" he wrote to the school, encouraging teachers and students to continue to carry forward the spirit of "hard work, truth-seeking and innovation" and make new contributions to the construction of the motherland.

Looking back on the past, with the construction and development of the Republic, generations of school people have been proud of the school, worked hard, passed on the torch, and practiced with determination; looking forward to the future, all teachers and students of the school will continue to carry forward the tradition, work together, unite their hearts and minds, forge ahead, and strive to build our school into an innovative multidisciplinary university that is "first-class in the province, well-known in the country, has a strong influence internationally, and has outstanding advantages in resources, environment and related fields"!

(Data statistics are as of April 2022)