Wuhan Institute of Technology, originally established as Wuhan Institute of Chemical Technology, adopted its current name in 2006. It was authorized as a doctoral degree-granting institution in 2013 and began admitting students at the first-tier undergraduate level nationwide in 2014. In 2018, the university was selected as a “Domestic First-Class Discipline Construction University” in Hubei Province. It currently has three disciplines of the top 1% globally by Essential Science Indicators (ESI)-Chemistry, Materials Science, and Engineering.
The Safety Engineering major traces its origins to the Department of Chemical Mining that established in 1978. The undergraduate major of Safety Engineering was launched in 2001, and it obtained the authority to grant master's degrees in “Safety Technology and Engineering” in 2010. In 2017, it was authorized to grant master’s degrees in the first-level discipline of “Safety Science and Engineering”. In the same year, it was listed as a discipline for Hubei Province’s Specially-Appointed Professors Major. In 2020, the major was approved as a Hubei Provincial First-Class Undergraduate Major Construction Site. In 2021, “Industrial Safety Science and Technology” was approved as a Hubei Provincial Higher Education Institutions’ Superior and Characteristic Discipline Cluster.
The university and Hubei Xingfa Chemicals Group Co., jointly established the Xingfa School of Mining (School of Resources and Safety Engineering) in 2018, making it the first demonstration college in Hubei Province jointly built by a university and an enterprise to promote industry-education integration. In 2021, the university collaborated with the Hubei Provincial Department of Emergency Management to establish the School of Emergency Management.
The Safety Engineering major has established 23 practical teaching platforms, including a National Engineering Practice Education Center, a provincial-level demonstration internship and training base, and a university-level internship base. The major has developed a Ministry of Education curriculum-based ideological and political education teaching team (the “Safety Management” course team), two provincial-level teaching teams (the provincial first-class course teaching teams for “Chemical Safety” and “Safety Management”), and a provincial-level high-quality online demonstration course (“Chemical Safety”). Additionally, the major has published nine professional textbooks. In 2025, the undergraduate major was awarded an “A” grade in the Hubei Provincial Higher Education Undergraduate Major Monitoring and Evaluation.
The Safety Engineering major maintains a strong foundation in undergraduate education with a consistent emphasis on rigorous teaching quality. In recent years, the students have won 15 awards of “Hubei Provincial Outstanding Bachelor’s Theses”. The evaluation scores for teaching rank among the highest at the university, with 30% of faculty receiving the “Three Excellences and Two Exemptions” honor. Additionally, the teaching process maintains a zero-accident record, and the program ranks second university-wide in graduation design quality inspections. In 2019, the “Mining and Safety Engineering Teaching Team” was approved as an Excellent Grassroots Teaching Organization for undergraduate institutions in Hubei Province.
Relying on platforms including “Chemical and Mining Engineering” (first-class discipline of Hubei Province) and the National Engineering Research Center for Phosphorus Resource Development and Utilization, the Safety Engineering major has fully leveraged the university’s distinctive strengths in fields of the safe mining of phosphate chemical mines and the safety of phosphochemical processes. Guided by the principle of “rooted in Hubei, radiating nationwide”, the major has cultivated a large number of versatile engineering application talents engaged in safety production management and technical work in the chemicals and mining industries. Over the past three years, the postgraduate admission rate and employment rate of the major have consistently ranked within the top three across the university.
