The Institute of Continental Dynamics and Natural Resource Engineering was founded in 2001 by integrating previous teaching and research sections of structural geology and seismogeology of the Geology Department, Peking University. As part of the national science training base, the major of structural geology and Tectonics is national key discipline, which also is the fundamental research direction of the institute.
Inheriting the original discipline superiorities, the institute always advances with the modern science development and gradually expands the research fields. Now the institute has the majors of structural geology and Tectonics, Disaster and Environmental geology, Resource Engineering Geology, Rock Physics, Information Geology and Tectonic Magnetism. The faculty forms with the domestic and worldwide famous scientists as academic leaders, and middle-aged and young teachers with doctoral degree as the backbone. Among them, one is Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences, one is Professor of Yangtze River Seminar, 10 are professors (also doctor tutors), 4 are associate professor, one is National Youth One Thousand People Plan Scholar, and one is assistant professor (tenure track). Through years of exploration and research, the institute has the domestic leading position and the certain international influence in the research areas of orogenic belt and basin tectonics, Precambrian geology and continental reconstruction, deformation mechanism and kinematics, tectonic chronology, information geology, tectonic magnetism, and tectonic modeling.
In recent years the institute receives annual research funding more than 20 million RMB from different sources including Major State Basic Research Development Program of China (973 Program), National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 Program), Natural Science Foundation of China (General Program, State Key Program, Young Scholars Program, Innovative Research Groups Program), National Science & Technology Pillar Program, National Science and Technology Major Project of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, geological survey projects, transverse scientific projects from enterprises, etc. To the academic achievement more than 100 articles have been published on SCI-indexed journals including international famous academic journals of SCIENCE, GEOLOGY, JGR, in addition other hundreds of articles were published on Chinese core journals or in the form of monographs. The institute has won dozens of provincial or ministerial level awards, and hosted several times of large international academic conferences.
To the undergraduate and graduate education, the institute always prioritizes course teaching and insists the guiding principle of promoting education with scientific research by integrating teaching and scientific research activities. At present the institute has opened a total of more than 40 undergraduate and graduate courses, been enrolling postgraduates for the master and doctor degrees of Structural Geology and Tectonics, and established the postdoctoral research station. Annually there are more than 90 postgraduates in all kinds of graduate programs, and each year more than 10 doctor students are successfully awarded the degree. More and more graduated doctoral students become the high level talents and some of them won Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award or were granted excellent young scientist foundation of NSFC.
Director: Prof. Jinjiang Zhang
Vise-director: Prof. Guiting Hou, Associate prof. Zhicheng Zhang
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