School of Chemical Science and Technology

The chemistry faculty at Yunnan University was originally established in 1937, when then president and well-known mathematician Xiong Qinglai hired French doctor Zhao Yanlai as to be head of the department of physics and chemistry. Nationally renowned chemists including Zeng Zhaolun, Huang Ziqing, Sun Cheng’e, Zhang Qinglian and Dai Shushan have successively taught at the school and made great contributions to the construction and development of the chemistry faculty at Yunnan University.

Following more than seven decades of development, the chemistry department of YNU has made its own distinctive achievements and a good academic tradition. In 2005, YNU established the School of Chemical Science and Technology based on the Department of Chemistry, the Department of Applied Chemistry, the School of Pharmacy and its experimental center.

The school currently has nearly 600 undergraduates, more than 200 postgraduates and more than 20 doctoral students. Over the years, the employment rate of undergraduates at the school has been among the best at YNU. Most graduates have become key technical staff and management personnel in related fields. Three  graduates who studied there have been selected as academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

The school now provides doctoral programs in chemistry -- the Yunnan provincial-level key discipline, postgraduate programs in chemistry, medicinal chemistry and applied chemistry and undergraduate programs in chemistry, applied chemistry, pharmaceutical engineering, chemical engineering and technology, as well as in polymer materials and engineering. It also has two centers and one key laboratory.

It boasts large-scale precision instruments valued at over 80 million yuan ($11.27 million), including superconducting nuclear magnetic resonance instruments, X-ray single crystal diffractometers, electrospray high-resolution mass spectrometers, time-resolved infrared spectrometers and atomic force microscopes. It also boasts laboratories covering  30,000 square meters.

The school has 110 teaching staff, including one academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, one academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, 27 professors and 10 doctoral supervisors.

Relying on Yunnan’s rich resources, the school gives full play to its cross-disciplinary advantages -- forming a development model combining production, learning and research, as well as striving to serve the economic construction of Yunnan province. Currently it presides over a number of national and provincial projects, including more than 20 at a national level and four provincial key projects. Members of the school publish more than 100 papers each year.