Introduction of the School of Infrastructure Engineering

The School of Infrastructure Engineering can be traced back to the Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering in Jiangxi Industrial College. It was founded from the subject of Civil and Hydraulic Engineering in National Chung-Cheng University in 1940. Since the department was established in 1958, the first students majoring in Industrial and Civil Architecture were recruited, and the students majoring in Architecture were enrolled in the following year. Some changes such as professional dismount and teacher-student going to the countryside, occurred afterwards, and the whole department moved to Pingxiang, Wuning, Jingdezhen and other places, resulting in great influence of the school’s strength. Until the university resumed enrollment, the Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering began to admit students majoring in Water Conservancy and Hydropower in 1970. The major of Industrial and Civil Architecture and the major of Architecture were reestablished in 1972 and 1981, respectively. Then the department established a new major of Water Supply and Drainagein 1987, after the university changed its name to the Jiangxi Industrial University in 1985. In 1993, Jiangxi Industrial University merged with Jiangxi University to form Nanchang University . Afterwards, the Departments of Civil Engineering, Architecture, Water Resources and Electric Power Engineering and the research institute of Engineering Mechanics were set up on the basis of the former Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering,. Since the demand of management after expansion, the university implements the three-levels management system, including university, school and department (institute). Thus, the school of Architectural and Environmental Engineering was established at the historic moment, which was then re-named as the School of Civil Engineering and Architecture in 2003 and the School of Infrastructure Engineering in 2022.

The school has three departments of Civil Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering and Engineering Mechanics. Nine teaching and research offices were established, including Engineering Structure, Geotechnical and Underground Engineering, Engineering Management, Road and Bridge Engineering, Building Energy Conservation, Hydraulic Engineering, Water Resources and Water Information, Remote Sensing and Mapping, Engineering mechanics. The School offers 4 undergraduate programs, including Civil Engineering, Building Environment and Energy Application, Water Conservancy and Hydropower Engineering, Engineering Mechanics. Wherein, the undergraduate program of Civil Engineering is the brand and characteristic major of Jiangxi Province, which has passed the professional assessment certification of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rura Development and in which the road and bridge direction is listed as a national Excellence Engineer Program. The school has a postdoctoral scientific research station and 2 first-level subjects with doctor’s degree authorization in Mechanics and Hydraulic Engineering, 3 first-level subjects with master’s degree authorization in Mechanics, Civil Engineering and Hydraulic Engineering, 1 master’s professional degree authorization in Civil and Hydraulic Engineering.

The school has 5 experimental centers for Civil Engineering, Building Environment and Energy Conservation, Engineering Design, Water Conservancy and Engineering Mechanics, in which Engineering Mechanics Experimental Center is the National Demonstration Center for Experimental Education and National virtual simulation Experimental Education Center for Mechanics and Engineering, Water Conservancy Experimental Center is Provincial Demonstration Center for experimental education. There are 14 provincial and ministerial scientific research platforms, including Key Laboratory of Jiangxi Province for Tailings Reservoir Engineering Safety, Key Laboratory of Jiangxi Province for Ultra-low Energy Buildings, Laboratory of Jiangxi Province for Nearlyzero-energybuildings Engineering, Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Poyang Lake Environment and Resource Utilization.

The School of Infrastructure Engineering has 143 staff members and 122 of them are full-time teachers, in which 25 are professors and 35 are associate professors. There are 93 full-time teachers who received the Doctor degree. The numbers of supervisors for PhD and Master are 22 and 55, respectively. The excellent teachers and groups in the School of Infrastructure and Engineering are as follows: 1 Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, 1 National "973 Project" Chief Scientist, 1 recipient for the project entitled "National Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars", 1 member in the "National Hundred, Thousand and Ten-thousand Talent Project", 1 recipient for the project entitled "National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars", 2 member in the "National Youth Talent Support Program", 1 member in "the Supported Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University", 1 leading talent of "Ganpo-yingcai 555 Project", 1 Jinggang Scholar, 7 members of "Jiangxi Double Thousand Talents Program", 4 leaders of Science and Technology of Jiangxi Province, 1 famous teacher of Jiangxi Province, 6 recipients of "Distinguished Young Scholars of Jiangxi Province", 4 key teachers of Jiangxi Province and  4 high level education teams of Jiangxi Province. The total number of registered structural engineers, registered geotechnical engineers, registered supervision engineers, registered cost engineers and registered builders is around 20.

The school insists in fostering virtue through education as its foundation, considers subject construction as the priority, faces the major demand of Jiangxi economic construction. The school aims at the development trend of industry and promotes industry-university-research cooperation actively, serves local economic and social development. A number of high-level research directions have been formed. The school has cultivated a large number of talents for the society, which has been widely recognized by the society and industry, many of them have become the mainstay of national construction and made significant contributions to economic and social development.