1. Understanding the Program
The Building Environment and Energy Application Engineering program (commonly abbreviated as the “Building Environment and Energy Application (BE&E)” program) is an energy application engineering specialty serving the “dual carbon” goals. Its basic function is to provide the necessary artificial environments for human survival and development, and its basic task is to construct and manage artificial environment engineering systems in all fields of society, coordinate the mutually constraining relationships among “artificial environment, natural environment and energy,” and ensure the sustainability of artificial environment functions. Integrating multiple modern sciences and built upon the knowledge systems of artificial environment and thermal science, the program combines traditional technologies such as ventilation, air conditioning, refrigeration, thermal energy and automatic control with emerging technologies such as information, data, artificial intelligence and green energy, thereby driving innovation in the industry. The program is committed to solving indoor environment problems in fields such as civil use, industrial production, healthcare, transportation and aerospace, creating building environments suitable for human life and work, process environments that meet industrial production requirements, and artificial environments required by special application fields, through HVAC equipment or systems. With the proposal and implementation of the strategic goals of “carbon peak and carbon neutrality,” the Building Environment and Energy Application Engineering program will embrace even broader space for development.
2. History of the Program
In 2004, the Teaching and Research Section of Building Environment and Equipment Engineering was established. In 2005, the program began enrolling undergraduate students in Building Environment and Equipment Engineering. In 2011, it obtained the master’s degree authorization point for the second-level discipline of Heating, Gas Supply, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Engineering under the first-level discipline of Civil Engineering. In 2012, it began enrolling master’s students in Heating, Gas Supply, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Engineering, and the undergraduate program holds the right to recommend outstanding graduates for graduate study without examination. In 2013, the program was renamed Building Environment and Energy Application Engineering and is a characteristic specialty of the university. In 2022, it was approved as a first-class undergraduate program construction site of Jiangxi Province and was rated a four-star undergraduate program among ordinary higher education institutions in Jiangxi Province. After 20 years of development, the department has made considerable progress in discipline construction, faculty development, teaching, scientific research and talent cultivation, and has cultivated and delivered more than 1,000 outstanding undergraduate graduates to the country.
3. Program Objectives
The program cultivates senior engineering and technical talents with all-round development in moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic and labor education, who can adapt to the needs of China’s socialist modernization and possess solid basic theory, broad professional knowledge, strong practical innovation ability and good professional qualities. It aims to cultivate talents who can apply professional knowledge such as building environment creation and regulation and building energy application to solve complex engineering problems in the artificial environment field, possess the ability to design, organize construction and operate building environment and energy systems and to formulate building equipment automation system solutions, be competent in research, planning, consulting, design, manufacturing, installation, operation or technical management of building environment and energy application in fields such as industry, construction, transportation and public institutions, and become engineers in the building environment and energy engineering field or possess corresponding professional capabilities.
4. Educational Philosophy and Program Characteristics
Undergraduate education emphasizes both theoretical and practical teaching and highlights the cultivation of students’ innovation ability. It establishes a three-level cultivation system “aimed at the cultivation of professional basic skills, engineering application ability and engineering innovation thinking,” builds four teaching and practice platforms, namely “integration of innovation and entrepreneurship, competition-driven learning, scientific research training and technology development,” and enhances five abilities of undergraduates, namely “learning ability, communication ability, practical ability, comprehension ability and innovative thinking ability.” It focuses on cultivating students’ comprehensive knowledge and ability in building environment creation and energy conservation and carbon reduction, forming the program’s talent cultivation characteristics of “integrating innovation and entrepreneurship, combining industry, academia and research, and serving the industry and local economy.”
5. Discipline Construction
In 2009, the program began enrolling professional degree master’s students in Architecture and Civil Engineering. In 2011, the university obtained the master’s degree authorization point for the second-level discipline of Heating, Gas Supply, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Engineering under the first-level discipline of Civil Engineering, and began enrolling master’s students in 2012. The discipline has 8 master’s supervisors and has so far cultivated more than 60 master’s students. In order to achieve a safe, healthy and sustainable indoor building environment, the discipline carries out scientific research and practice in technologies such as green buildings, new energy application, energy storage technology and intelligent buildings, as well as related equipment manufacturing. At present, it has formed stable disciplinary characteristics in green buildings, energy storage materials, new energy utilization and development, indoor air quality, energy conservation and emission reduction technologies, and air purification technologies. It has been approved for 6 national fund projects, more than 20 provincial-level research projects and more than 50 horizontal research topics, published more than 100 professional academic papers, including more than 20 SCI papers, and been authorized more than 10 national invention patents.
6. Training Conditions
The Department of Building Environment and Energy Application Engineering has a faculty of moderate size with a reasonable structure of professional titles, ages and academic origins. The program currently has 17 full-time and part-time teachers, including 1 professor, 8 associate professors, 2 senior engineers, 5 lecturers and 1 experimentalist. There are 9 master’s supervisors, including 2 mid-career backbone teachers of Jiangxi Province. All professional teachers hold master’s degrees or above, among whom 11 hold doctoral degrees, coming from universities including Tsinghua University, Sichuan University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, South China University of Technology, Central South University, Donghua University, Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, and Guangzhou University.
The department has always attached great importance to teaching work. In recent years, the program has undertaken 10 provincial-level education and teaching research projects, been approved for 1 provincial-level teaching team and 1 university-level teaching team, won 1 second prize for university-level teaching achievements, received teaching competition awards for 3 people, had 3 model educators, been approved for 2 provincial-level first-class undergraduate courses and 6 university-level online boutique open courses, and published 2 textbooks. It has published more than 10 teaching research papers on characteristic cultivation, curriculum reform, practical exploration and other aspects.
The program currently has 1 provincial-level key laboratory and 1 municipal-level engineering technology research center, with multiple experimental sub-laboratories for artificial environment simulation, heat and mass transfer, air conditioning and refrigeration, solar radiation, new energy application, energy storage materials, and ventilation and thermal comfort, as well as more than 20 on-campus and off-campus internship and practice bases. The laboratory possesses a batch of advanced testing instruments and equipment, whose functions can also provide a high-level research platform for academic competitions, course design, graduation design, college student innovation training, teachers’ vertical and horizontal research projects, graduate cultivation, and university-industry cooperation.
7. Achievements in Teaching Construction and Reform
Undergraduate education emphasizes both theoretical and practical teaching and has carried out quality project construction in key courses, characteristic bases and textbook compilation, highlighting the cultivation of students’ innovation ability and building practical platforms for academic competitions, scientific and technological inventions, and innovation and entrepreneurship. In recent years, the program has achieved good results in teaching reform and students’ practical innovation, having been approved for 8 provincial-level teaching reform projects, 2 provincial-level “13th Five-Year Plan” education and science planning projects, and 1 provincial-level humanities and social science project for universities; been awarded 2 provincial-level high-quality postgraduate courses, 2 provincial-level first-class undergraduate courses, 1 second prize for university-level teaching achievements, and 6 university-level boutique online open courses; published 2 characteristic textbooks; and received more than 50 national and provincial awards for students in competitions, 15 scientific and technological invention achievements, 3 national-level college student innovation and entrepreneurship training programs, 5 provincial-level college student innovation and entrepreneurship training programs, and 3 university-level college student innovation experiment programs.
8. Application Fields and Employment Prospects
The average employment rate of this program over the past three years exceeds 95%, and the average graduate examination enrollment rate exceeds 30%. After graduation, students can engage in technical and management work such as consulting and design, research and development and manufacturing, construction and installation, operation and management, and system support in heating, ventilation, air conditioning, cold and heat sources, purification, gas, building energy conservation and automatic control, in units such as urban construction and planning, energy management, building energy conservation and environmental protection, industrial and mining enterprises, design institutes, building engineering, equipment manufacturing, engineering consulting, and equipment operation.
