Established on July 4th, 2006, Institute of Urban Environment (IUE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) is a research institute directly under CAS. It specializes in comprehensive research on urban environment, with first-level disciplines authorized to grant master’s and doctor’s degree in the fields of Environmental Science and Engineering and Ecology as well as Environmental Science and Engineering post-doctoral stations. The key research areas are: urban environmental quality changes and ecological health effects, urban environmental pollution control and waste resource utilization, urban planning and environmental management.
IUE has 280 employees, including one academician of the Chinese Academy of Science, one academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, six national-level distinguished young scholars, four national-level excellent young scientists and thirty-four researchers. It has a bank of talents in the field of unban environmental science, which will provide firm scientific and technological support for the development of local ecological civilization and environmental protection industries.
IUE is the support institution of Urban Health and Wellbeing Programme under ICSU, CAS Regional Atmospheric Environment Research Centre of Excellence, International Science & Technology Cooperation Base and Base for Scientific and Technological Cooperation and Exchanges with Taiwan under Ministry of Science and Technology. It has CAS key laboratories of urban environment and health and transformation of urban pollutants, CAS Engineering Laboratory of Municipal Solid Waste Utilization Technology and other research platforms. Its laboratories have passed the national laboratory accreditation.
Our institute’s scientific and technological innovation strength continues to improve. In 2019, the institute published over 520 SCI papers and ranked first internationally in the number of highly cited papers on the dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes in environments. In 2020, the ESI international rankings (top 1%) in the disciplines of Environmental and Ecology and Environmental Engineering, and Nature Index (NI) in the field of Earth and Environmental Science all ranked high among the institutions affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Our institute is committed to building local ecological civilization, promoting innovation in regional industrial technology and advancing local eco-environmental protection and sustainable urban development. For instance, we proposed the concept of “Landsenses Ecology” for the first time, which has been demonstrated and applied in the ecological conservation of Xiong’an New Area, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and Urban Agglomeration Around Beibu Gulf. We took the lead in formulating Regulations on Protecting Ecological Civilization of the Xiamen Special Economic Zone, which is the first of its kind in China. We have also complied Master Plan for Beautiful Environment in Xiamen, and Special Plan for Xiamen Ecological Civilization During 13th Five-Year Plan and other regulations, plans and consulting reports. As the first in China to carry out evaluation and performance assessment of ecological civilization, the institute also provides scientific and technological support for the development of ecological civilization that integrates regulation, standard-planning-evaluation and assessment.
Based on the innovative model of demand-oriented R&D, IUE considers the needs of enterprises, and build industrial technology R&D centers with enterprises. We have achieved a number of scientific and technological innovations, performed demonstrations and carried out industrial applications in environmental planning and management, environmental governance technology and equipment, environment functional materials and other fields. For examples, Solid Waste Reduction and Utilization Technology has been applied in Tianjin, Zhejiang and Jilin Province. Ecological Conservation and Ecosystem Intelligent Management Technology have been demonstrated in the “Technology Project on Ecological Civilization to Build Beautiful China” in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
IUE actively promotes commercialization of research findings. We have set up and held a stake in 18 environmental protection technology enterprises by means of using intangible assets as part of registered capital or providing technical support. In 2019, those enterprises in which we have a stake generated revenue of over one billion yuan with the total profit exceeding 200 million yuan. Furthermore, the enterprises with commercialization of scientific and research findings have gained good momentum of development.
