1. Department Introduction

The Department of food science and engineering at Harbin Institute of Technology was founded in 2003. Since 2004, the department has the right to grant master and doctoral degree of Food Science. In 2005, undergraduate students majoring in Food Science and Engineering have been enrolled. It has formed a multi-level school system for undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students training.

2. Teachers and scientific research

Now, the department has 25 academic staff doctorate rate is over 92%, including 8 professors, 8 associate professors, 20 master tutors and 9 PhD supervisors. Now, the Department has 1 Chief Scientist of the Key Laboratory for Assembly and Space Food, and more than 10 professors as the National Scientific Research Award Evaluation Experts. The department also has 1 Key Laboratory of Cold Region Resource Food Quality and Safety and Extreme Environmental Nutrition Engineering Center, 1 International Sino-French Joint Laboratory on Dairy Science and Technology, 1 Sino-Russian Joint Laboratory of Special Food Science and Engineering Equipment.

Centering on the international cutting-edge of academic science and research, the department aim to form distinct specialised and advanced science and technologies in the field of “Health food process control and food safety” and aspect of “Aerospace biological engineering and intelligent equipment” to reach or lead the international cutting edge in academic level to meet the significant needs of national food industry and food nutrition and health, especially the long-term human aerospace survival, and the key market of the national economy.

The Department have won 2 National Science Award and over 20 Provincial Science and Technology Awards. The Department have published more than 150 SCI papers and had 53 invention patents. During the past 5 years, we have undertaken more than 30 national projects, more than 60 military and national defense, provincial and ministerial level and important horizontal scientific research projects, and tens of millions of yuan in total research funding. Department attaches great importance to the transformation of scientific research achievements. A number of results had achieved the project application and industrialization, had created significant economic and social benefits.

The Department is very active in international academic exchanges and cooperation. More than 85% of the teachers in this department have more than one year's overseas experience in studying abroad. The Department had academic cooperation with more than 10 famous universities and research institutions such as Yale University, Cornell University, Purdue University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Mcgill University, French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), and France Western Agricultural University. At the same time, the department carries out substantive cooperation with famous universities and research institutions in the students training by means of Graduate students and doctoral candidates exchange programs.

In recent years, the department teachers have made more than 50 times international visits and more than 50 external adjunct professors have been invited to our team for academic exchange. It has become normal for students to go abroad for short-term academic research and participate in academic conferences and other exchanges. With her respectable and influential international status in food science, Professor Ma Ying has been working as associate editor for the international journal of “Dairy Science and Technology”.

3. Training feature

We have developed all-round education platform, focusing on the combination of the theoretical basis and practical ability to cultivate perseverance, good behaviour, a solid theoretical foundation, outstanding creativity, comprehensive quality, with strong sense of social responsibility and basic skills, internationalized, industrialised new elite talents. Currently, there are 168 students in this department, including 65 undergraduates, 65 master students and 38 doctoral students.

The proportion of graduates studying in this field reached over 55%, and the rate of further study abroad reached 30%, and the employment rate reached 100%. Graduates are distributed in many famous universities and research institutions for further study, including University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, University of Maryland, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Agricultural University etc. Graduates work at world famous enterprises and well-known universities, research institutes, including COFCO, Nestle, Danone, Coca-Cola, Mengniu, Yili, Bright Dairy, Harbin Institute of Technology, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Northeast Agricultural University etc.