1. Discipline Basis
The present School of Geographical Sciences at Nanjing Normal University founded by Prof. Xudan Li and other forefathers in 1952 can be traced back to the History and Geographical Sciences Department of Sanjiang Normal College. It went through the following stages: the Department of Chinese, History and Geography at National Nanjing Higher Normal School, the Department of Geography at National Southeast University, the Department of Geography at National Central University and the Department of Geography at Nanjing University. In 1997, the first School of Geographical Sciences nationwide wasset up granted by the Jiangsu Education Commission. Upholding the great banner of Geography, the School of Geographical Sciences plays a special role in the development of China’s Geography study for it is not only the birthplace of Chinese modern human geography and modern cartographic education, but also the major base for the geographic environment modelling and simulation and the study of geographic information science.
2. Team Building
The school has a “national double first-level discipline” and “provincial key discipline” in universities of Jiangsu-Geography, a “national key discipline”-Cartography and GIS, a “national key cultivating discipline”-Human Geography. The school has one Academician, one “Thousand Talents Project” Distinguished Professor, one Yangtze Scholar, three persons supported by the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, two winners of a special support plan for National Prestigious Teachers, two New Century National Talent Project candidates, one awarded a Thousand Talent Youths Project, and two winners of the National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars, three awarded New Century Excellent Talents Projects of the Ministry of Education and three core teachers supported by the Fund for Higher Education Institution’s Core Teachers. Thus, our team has developed with the innovative team of Yangtze Scholars and that of Excellent Science and Technology in Jiangsu Province as its main body.
3. Talent Cultivation
This schoolgrants doctoral degree of geography as a “first-level discipline” and has been given the right to set up postdoctoral research programs, thus completing the talent education system ranging from undergraduate, master, PhD to postdoctoral education. We have two national-level teachingteams, two national-level experimental teaching platforms, and have set up six national-level quality sharing courses and national-level quality video sharing courses, recognition as having a National Bilingual Language Model Teaching Course, national distinctive discipline, and anexperimental talent fostering program. Our faculty have won four second prizes of the National Teaching Achievement Award, one special prize and three first prizes of the Jiangsu Teaching Achievement Award.
4. Scientific Research
By keeping both the concernabout being on the academic cutting edge and the nation’s requirements in mind, the discipline, characterized by “Rooting in Geography, Serving Geography, Developing Geography”, has made great breakthroughs in the process and mechanisms in the geographic environment, geographic information modeling and simulation, and regional planning and resource management. The school has numerous projects as follows : two “937 Projects”, two projects of the National Key R&D Plan, one from the National Social Science Fund of China, one project funded by the National Science and Technology Infrastructure Center, and 16 scholars supported by the National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars and Outstanding Youth Science Foundation and other international projects. We have the Virtual Geographic Environment Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education and a sub-platform of the National Earth System Science Data Sharing Infrastructure.Our faculty have published 6 papers in authoritative periodicals such as Science and Nature, won a second prizefrom the National Natural Science Foundation of China, three first prizesfrom the Natural Science Prize held by the Ministry of Education, and 20 awards at the nationaland provincial level.
5. International Exchange and Cooperation
Adhering to an international talent cultivation strategy, we carry forward international exchange and cooperation at a high-level and in multiform, for instance, we built jointly cultivate talent with the EU, University of Wisconsin and the University of Maryland. In recent years, we have held more than 20 international and domestic conferences, such as International Geomorphometry, etc. We also have strengthened scientific and research communication with numerous top foreign experts, teachers of our school acting as visiting professors and guest professors at universities overseas, which gives us an extensive academic influence at home and abroad. In 2018, we have been participating in the “111 Plan”.
6. Social Service
The school makes the most of its advantages, promoting “production, study and research” cooperation of multi-level, multi-type and multi-direction to serve local development. The school contributes a lot to the national and local economy based on the following labs: Tianmu Lake Aquatic Environment Monitoring Experiment Station, ESRI School-Enterprise United Lab, Internet of Things School-Enterprise United Lab, Navigation Technology and Application, Jiangsu Industrial Technology Research Institute and Coordinated Innovation Center for Geographic Information Resources Development and Utilization. All of these laboratories and centers are of great help for the school to form predominant features in land management, tourism management, construction of digital and intelligent city, national condition analysis and evaluation, geographic information project and service.
Our school will persist in the culture of “relax, harmonious, positive”, and stay committed to the characteristic of “Developing the first-level disciplines, coordinating second-level disciplines, balancing teaching and scientific research, upholding theory and application” and work hard to improve our school as a first-tier and influential center for geographic scientific research, talent cultivation and social service.