School of Environmental and Resource Sciences opens its door in the April of 1985, and currently consists of the original school and the later incorporated three research institutes, which are the Institute of Resources and Environmental Engineering, the Institute of Environmental Science and the Institute of Loess Plateau. There are currently 174 faculty members and staff. Of these, 45 are professors, 76 associate professors, 137 having doctoral degree, and 48 faculty members are open for PhD candidates.
For undergraduate programs, the Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) degree is offered for three focused programs of Environmental Science, Environmental Engineering, and Resource cycling Science & Engineering. The Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree is offered for the program of Natural Geology, Environment and Resources. Of these four, the programs of Environmental science and Environmental Engineering are the national first-class undergraduate programs, and the other two programs are provincial first-class programs.
For graduate programs, the Master of Engineering (M.E.) degree is offered for the programs of Geology, Environmental science and Environmental Engineering. The Doctoral degree is offered for two programs of Environmental Science & Engineering and Ecology. The postdoctoral positions are open for two programs of Environmental Science & Engineering and Ecology. The program of Environment and Ecology are in the worldwide top 1% by ESI (Essential Science Indicators).
Shanxi university is one of the pioneering universities having the program of Environmental Science. The program of Environmental Conservation was started in 1983, and the degree granting authority was approved for the Master of Engineering (M.E.) in 1994, the Doctor of Engineering in 1998. In 2002, the discipline of Environmental Science was approved as one of the key disciplines in Shanxi Province. In 2003, the postdoctoral research positions were opening for the program of Environmental Science & Engineering. In 2011, the doctor degree authority was approved for the program of Environmental Science & Engineering. The school also has the doctor degree authority for the interdisciplinary program of Resource Cycling Science & Engineering, and Environmental Biomedicine, and has become a cradle for the high-level talents, attracting 32 National Outstanding/Outstanding-Youth talents, National Bai-Qian-Wan Talents, Sanjin/Sanjin-Young Scholars, as well as 7 provincial innovation teams, such as Shanxi "1331 Project" coal-based waste utilization, and regional pollution and health etc. As one of the key disciplines of Shanxi university, the school of Environmental Science and Resources is striving to become the first-class. With the focuses on major environmental and ecological problems in coal-based industrial clusters, there are four research directions as the efficient utilization of coal-based solid waste, environmental toxicology and health, pollution control and ecological restoration, as well as environmental analysis and new materials, and all of them having apparent regional characteristics.
The college has 12 national, provincial and ministerial key laboratories, such as one national key laboratory for the efficient utilization of coal waste, and national-regional joint applied laboratory for the integrated utilization of coal industrial waste, the research center for CO₂ emission reduction and utilization, the Yellow River laboratory of Shanxi Province. Grounded on these research Infrastructure, the extensive domestic and international collaborative research has been conducted to foster the collaboration between universities, university and industries, as well as the application of research & development (R&D). The collaboration of university with industries is conducive to the achievement of one of our missions, serving for the society, serving for the transformation to eco-environmental society in Shanxi Province, and achieving the lower carbon emission and carbon neutrality.
Numerous″National Science and Technology Awards″, provincial and ministerial awards have been received, and these achievements have paved the way for entering the national "double first-class" program. Of these, the second prizes of ″National Science and Technology Progress″ in 2003 and 2020 were awarded for the research on the bottle-necked technology for the production of potassium sulfate from mirabilite and the key technology and application of clean & efficient utilization of coal gangue led by Professor Fangqin Cheng. Another second prize of ″National Technical Invention″ was awarded for the research and application of photo-induced discoloring of new materials led by Professor Chuan Dong in 2004. In the past five years, we were granted for 3 national key research and development projects, 5 key projects of National Natural Science Foundation of China, and 60 projects of National Natural Science Foundation of China. More than 20 invention patents have been industrialized, and more than 600 research papers have been published in the high-tier journals.