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The School of Biological Sciences and Technology of Jiangsu University traces its origins to the Institute of Life Sciences of Jiangsu University, which was founded in 2001. The School was authorized to confer the master's degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2003 and master's degrees in Physiology and Ecology in 2006. In 2010, it was authorized to offer the master's degree program in Biology as a first-level discipline. In 2014, its program in Biotechnology and Its Pharmaceutical Translation was approved as a Jiangsu Higher Education Priority Academic Program Development (PAPD) discipline. In 2020, the institution was restructured from a dedicated research institute into a school, the School of Life Sciences. In 2021, it began enrolling students in the professional master's degree program in Biology and Medicine. In 2022, it was approved to offer the undergraduate program in Biological Sciences; in 2025, its Sino-foreign cooperative undergraduate program in Biological Sciences was approved by the Ministry of Education and began enrolling students in September of the same year. In March 2026, the undergraduate program in Biotechnology (approved in 2001) and the master's degree program in Ecology as a first-level discipline (approved in 2009) were transferred to the School, which was renamed the School of Biological Sciences and Technology.
The School now offers master's degree programs in two first-level disciplines, Biology and Ecology, and a professional master's degree program in Biology and Medicine, and it jointly offers doctoral programs in Environmental Science and Engineering, Food Science and Engineering, and Clinical Medicine. Its disciplinary strength is considerable: five disciplines — Plant and Animal Science, Biology and Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Genetics, Immunology, and Microbiology — are ranked in the top 1% worldwide in the Essential Science Indicators (ESI), underpinning the University's Agricultural Sciences in reaching the top 0.01% in ESI. Bioengineering is ranked 76–100 worldwide in the ShanghaiRanking Global Ranking of Academic Subjects, and Biotechnology and Applied Microbiology ranks 16th globally in the latest U.S. News Best Global Universities subject rankings.
The School has 73 faculty and staff members, comprising 63 teaching and research faculty (including 3 foreign nationals), 4 teaching support staff, and 6 administrative staff. All teaching and research faculty hold doctoral degrees, and 73% have one year or more of overseas study or research experience. Twelve faculty hold senior professional titles and 36 hold associate senior titles; there are 9 doctoral supervisors and 45 master's supervisors. The School is home to 2 national-level talent awardees and 25 provincial- and ministerial-level talent designations, including recipients of the Fok Ying Tung Education Foundation Award of the Ministry of Education, Jiangsu Distinguished Young Scholars, Jiangsu Specially-Appointed Professors, and talents under the Jiangsu Provincial “Double Innovation” (Innovation and Entrepreneurship) Program.
The School currently enrolls 393 undergraduate students, 230 graduate students, and 23 international students, and offers two undergraduate programs: Biological Sciences and Biotechnology. Committed to placing undergraduate education at the core, the School has continued to deepen its teaching reforms and has developed a training system in which undergraduate and master's education advance in tandem. Through the Sino-foreign cooperative education program and various platforms for science and innovation competitions, it systematically strengthens students' capacity for innovation and practice. In recent years, students have repeatedly achieved outstanding results in national academic competitions such as the “Challenge Cup” and the National Undergraduate Life Sciences Competition. Nearly 100% of graduates have confirmed destinations upon graduation, and some have gone on to further study at renowned universities and research institutions in China and abroad, including Stanford University, the University of Leeds, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Fudan University, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Focusing on agriculture, medicine, food, and the environment, the School gives priority to four distinctive research directions: botany, zoology, cell biology, and microbiology. Its research covers the genetic dissection of crop agronomic traits and breeding, economic insects and insect breeding, virology, applied microbiology, and synthetic biology, as well as biomedical research in biomedical testing, immunology, and tumor molecular biology. Over the past five years, the School has proactively aligned itself with national strategies, focusing on the national “biomanufacturing” strategy and future industries and actively building a frontier disciplinary ecosystem of “synthetic biology plus.” It has undertaken more than 30 national-level projects, including topics and sub-topics of the National Key R&D Program and projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. The School has received one Second Prize of the Natural Science Award of the Ministry of Education, one Second Prize and two Third Prizes of the Jiangsu Provincial Science and Technology Award, and, as a collaborating institution, one Second Prize of the Natural Science Award of the China Maternal and Child Health Society and one Third Prize of the Jiangsu Medical Science and Technology Award. It has published nearly 450 SCI-indexed papers in high-level journals in China and abroad, including Cell and Nature Communications, applied for nearly 80 invention patents (nearly 40 granted), and published 4 academic monographs.
The School has established joint training bases with renowned research institutes and enterprises, including the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and the Jiangsu Industrial Technology Research Institute. Relying on platforms such as the Jiangsu Provincial Industrial Technology Engineering Center for Immune Decoding and Biotherapeutics of Major Diseases (under construction), it continues to deepen the integration of industry, academia, research, and application. The School also attaches great importance to international education. Through the Sino-foreign cooperative program in Biological Sciences and its English-taught programs, it actively expands joint training channels with renowned universities worldwide. It regularly invites internationally renowned scholars to give lectures and sponsors outstanding students for overseas exchange and visiting study; in recent years it has been approved for 13 projects under national foreign expert programs, actively enrolls international students, and steadily raises the level of its international education.
The School continues to deepen the reform of its internal governance system and has established a new architecture characterized by “one core providing overall leadership, two wings working in concert, two axes intersecting, and multi-dimensional empowerment.” With the Strategic Planning Group as the core, it drives the Teaching Division and the Research Division to advance in tandem. The Teaching Division, relying on “two departments and one center” — the Department of Biological Sciences, the Department of Biotechnology, and the International Education Center — consolidates the foundation for student development. The Research Division breaks down traditional boundaries to achieve an “intersection of two axes” between the four distinctive research directions and five specialized research institutes, covering all full-time faculty and conducting organized research focused on the national and local strategic priorities of “biomanufacturing” and “synthetic biology plus.” In addition, the Department of Social Services, the Biological Experiment Center, and the “Leisi Biology” Academic Forum provide multi-dimensional support, forming a sound ecosystem in which teaching and research reinforce each other and innovation is pursued collaboratively.
Gathering talents from across the world and nurturing the pillars of the nation, we warmly welcome young students who aspire to careers in biological science and technology to apply and pursue further study, and we reserve positions for outstanding scholars from China and abroad to join our School. We look forward to working hand in hand with you to write a new chapter in the School's high-quality development.
Updated October 2026