Drawing on its solid foundation in biology and ecology, BFU is a national key university that, in addition to stressing on the balanced and coordinated development of programs in agronomy, science, engineering, management, economy, law, philosophy, education as well as arts, prides itself particularly on its distinctive disciplines such as forestry, landscape architecture, forestry engineering, grass science, and agro-economic management. The university has consistently adhered to a vision that celebrates on “Championship in Earth Stewardship, Leadership in Forestry Education” and taken as its mandatory mission to “adorn a picturesque touch to the mountains, the rivers and the entire terrestrial landscape of the country so as to turn the motherland into a lovely painting created by nature”. Over the 60-old years since the establishment of BFU, more than 200,000 domestic and foreign graduates have emerged from the university to become high-level forestry and ecology professionals that contribute significantly to China’s ecological progresses, thriving forestry sector and note-worthy social-economic growth, standing out in particular among which are 16 academicians of Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) and Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), and a wide array of senior technicians, specialists and managerial talents.
BFU is a higher education institute authorized by the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council (SC-ADC) and the MOE for independent accreditation of professorship, for setting independently up new 2nd-category doctorate and master programs as well as new inter-disciplinary programs under its accredited 1st-category disciplines. The 4th round of National Academic Disciplines Review (NADR) put BFU’s 2 Shuangyiliu (1st-tier vintage) disciplines—forestry and landscape architecture—within the A+ bracket. The university currently offers 1 1st-category national key discipline (which includes 7 2nd-category key national disciplines), 2 2nd-category national key disciplines, 1 national prioritized discipline, 6 NFGA key disciplines (1st-category), 3 NFGA prioritized disciplines, 2 Beijing municipal Advanced-Sophisticated-cutting-edge disciplines, 3 Beijing municipal key 1st-category disciplines (including prioritized ones), 4 Beijing municipal key 2nd-category disciplines, and 1 Beijing municipal key interdisciplinary program. As of the end of 2019, BFU had made its way into the list of ESI global top 1% in 7 of its disciplines.
BFU is currently composed of 16 schools that jointly offer 65 undergraduate programs, 25 1st-category master programs, 16 profession-oriented master programs, 8 1st-category doctorate programs and 7 post-doctorate programs. Among the 25,347 students enrolled in BFU at the present, 13,449 are working on their respective undergraduate programs, 6289 on master and doctorate programs, and the rest 4,203 on various continuous education programs. In addition to the tutorial system and minor-specialty initiative employed to facilitate the students’ educational needs, the university has also launched a wide range of pilot programs to foster high-end innovative talents who have solid interdisciplinary backgrounds—such as the National Science Base Initiative, the National Agro-forestry Talents Nurturing Initiative, the Liangxi Experimental Program, the Innovation Workshop, and the Sino-foreign Joint degree programs, to name just a few. Currently, BFU boasts 12 national 1st-tier key programs, 4 ministry/provincial 1st-tier key programs, and 2 other 1st-tier key programs funded by Beijing municipal government. BFU students have frequently won top awards and distinguished themselves out in a wide range of internationally-acclaimed prestigious contests like the IFLA Landscape Architecture Design Contest for International Students, the Red Dot Award Design Competition, the MCM/ICM Contest, the ACM Programming Contests for International Students, and the ICAN IoT Innovation Contest for University Students and many others.
BFU has set up a Strategic Advisory Board composed of 46 CAS/CAE academicians in corresponding fields to tap into the intellectual insights of the board members for promoting the university’s long-term development and optimizing the composition and capacity of its current 2,026-member faculty, part of which consists of 1,258 full-time academics, including 337 professors and 571 associate professors.
BFU is at present the proud owner of 49 key national, and ministry/provincial laboratories, engineering centers and field posts/stations. Over the decades since its establishment, the University has in accumulation been awarded 57 State-level and 395 ministry/provincial-level prizes in science and technology. In the years following the implementation of China’s 12th 5-year Plan, BFU has won 10 State-level science/technology awards (6 2nd Prizes for Sci/Tech Advancement, and 4 2nd Prizes for Technology Inventions) and 65 ministry/provincial-level prizes in science and technology. The numbers of academic papers authored and published by BFU researchers in SCI- and EI-listed journals amount respectively to 4,230 and 2,735. In addition, the university has also been an active player that undertakes a wide range of key projects listed under or funded by the State R&D Initiative, the State R&D Supportive Programs, the 863 Initiative, and the National Natural Science Foundation Initiative, with the total value of R&D inputs adding up to RMB2.19 billion.
In line with the demands of key State Strategies such as the Coordinated Development Program for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region, the Eco-Conservation and Quality-centered Development Program for the Yellow River Catchment, the Beijing Municipality Secondary Administrative Center Development Program, the Xiong’an New Area Development Program and etc., BFU takes initiative in setting up the Research Institute for Eco-conservation and Quality-centered Development of the Yellow River Catchment (RIEQDYRC), the first among its domestic counterparts to do so. The university has been an active player, a worthy think-tank and a trusted partner for the key eco-restoration and conservation programs that China launched consecutively over the past few decades, including the Sanbei (the 3-North) Shelterbelt Forests Development Program, the NFPP program, the Farmland-to-Forests/Grasslands Conversion Program, the Pan-Beijing-Tianjin Sandstorm-Mitigation/Control Program and etc. In addition, landscape improvement programs conceived and designed by the BFU landscape architecture team can be found in practically every part across the country, standing out in particular among which are the Huagangguanyu Project that has been hailed as the forerunner of contemporary garden-making in China, the Westward Expansion Project of the West Lake in Hangzhou city, and the Pearl River Delta Green Trail Network Project that have turned out to be the trend-setters for modern landscape architecture designing. Following the successful conclusion of the 2019 Beijing Horticultural Expo in which BFU had played a leading role in providing technical supports and professional expertise, the university is now well-positioned to do even better in the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympic Games, for which its landscape architecture team shall be responsible for the overall planning of landscape in and around the venues as well as of corresponding eco-conservation projects. BFU has been an active participant in the 2nd scientific and research expedition to the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, an initiator and disseminator for the concept of “managing mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes and grasslands as an integrated ecological system” in terms of both theories and technologies.
In response to the demands of the Belt and Road Initiative (B&RI), BFU has launched extensive cooperation in scientific researches and education with over 190 universities/institutes in 30-odd countries/regions involved in the B&RI. To better cater to the needs for efficient and fruitful cross-border academic exchanges and cooperation, BFU took leadership in setting up the Asia-Pacific Forestry Education Coordinating Mechanism (APFECM), in which a dozen leading forestry professionals and academics around the globe are actively involved. The MOC-sponsored capacity-building Workshop for forestry officials from developing countries has been going on successfully for 14 consecutive years in BFU, providing fruitful programs to approximately 600 person-times. Thanks to the signing of the Agreement between BFU and the Asian-Pacific Organization for Forest Restoration and Sustainable Management on entering strategic partnership, and to the establishment of the Sino-French Collaborative Laboratory of Euro-Asian Forest Intrusive Pests jointly initiated by BFU and the Agronomy Academy of France, a vast number of scholars and specialists from overseas have come over to the university to take part in the high-end international symposiums, workshops and forums that are held annually on the campus. Meanwhile, teachers and researchers of the university have been dispatched overseas for various exchange programs and for the implementation of over 40 international R&D cooperative projects. Besides the degree programs in wood science & engineering, biological technology offered in cooperation with the University of British Columbia in Canada, several other training programs joint run by American, French universities are also underway in BFU. The Silk-road Agricultural Education and Research Innovation Alliance, Global Challenge University Alliance, and the China-CEEC Higher Education Institutions Consortium that BFU consecutively joined put in place a vintage platform for the university to rise up to the call of the country’s foreign policy, to speed up its going-global paces and to engage in all-around international cooperation. An accredited university for granting Chinese Government Scholarship, MOC Scholarship for Foreign Students under Degree Programs, Beijing Municipal Government Scholarship, Beijing B&RI Special Students Grants, and Asia-Pacific Forestry Organization Scholarship, BFU now offers higher educational programs to close to 300 students from over 50 countries, with 80% of whom working on a certain academic degree.
The university covers 13,176mu in its total areas, 696mu for the principal campus and the other 12,480mu for its experimental forest plant. With a floor space that amounts up to 23,400m2, the BFU library has in its collection 1.9326 million physical books, 48,900GB e-books and over 70 specialized databases. Band-width of the LAN on campus stands at 10,000MB and 1,000MB for the trunk cables and desktop cables respectively.
Updated 24 September 2020
