Departments

Discipline characteristics

The agricultural engineering discipline serves talent cultivation, technology, and equipment development in the six major agricultural production processes of "farmland, sowing, management, harvesting, storage, and transportation". In recent years, it has achieved a deep integration of agricultural machinery and agronomy, as well as traditional agricultural machinery and artificial intelligence technology. She has unique advantages and characteristics in modern agricultural research fields such as high-speed precision seeding, digital design, simulation of agricultural machinery, intelligent agricultural machinery, precision agriculture, conservation farming, intelligent measurement, agricultural environment control, new energy utilization, continuous grain drying, and so on, During the establishment of the first-class discipline construction project of Jilin University in 2014, agricultural engineering was listed as the peak discipline. In 2017, the national "double first-class" construction was launched, and agricultural engineering entered the national first-class discipline "Mechanical and Bionic Engineering Discipline Group" approved by the Ministry of Education and independently constructed by Jilin University. In the fifth round of discipline evaluation, agricultural engineering discipline was rated as an “A-” discipline.

Highlights of scientific research and innovation achievements

The research achievements of the agricultural engineering discipline enjoy a high reputation in the field of international and domestic agricultural engineering. "BZ Type Comprehensive Seeder" won the third prize of the National Invention Award in 1983, "High Speed Precision Seed Metering Device and Application" won the third prize of the National Invention Award in 1993, "Complete Set of Technology and Equipment for High Speed Precision Seeding and Pre-sowing Soil Treatment" won the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award in 2003, and "Key Technology of Corresponding Equipment for Conservation Tillage of Maize Planting" won the first prize of the Jilin Province Technology Invention Award in 2015, "New Technology for Rapid and Accurate Plant Physiological Information Chlorophyll Fluorescence Spectroscopy Detection" won the "Second Prize for Technological Invention in Jilin Province" in 2015, "Key Technology and Equipment for Intelligent Grain Drying and Storage" won the "First Prize for Technological Invention in Jilin Province" in 2017, and "Key Technology and Equipment for Full Value Bionic Harvesting of Northeast Maize" successively won the "First Prize for Scientific and Technological Progress in Jilin Province" in 2018 and the "Second Prize for National Technological Invention" in 2019. "Digital Supervision Method for Grain Storage and Remote Supervision System for Grain Storage Outside the Warehouse" and "Key Technologies and Equipment for Maize Ear Harvesting and Straw Baling for Black Soil Protection" won the "First Prize and Second Prize for Scientific and Technological Progress of Jilin Province" in 2022, respectively.

Scientific research teams

Currently, there are two Changjiang Scholars, two winners of the National Outstanding Youth Fund, two winners of the National Outstanding Youth Fund, three Changbai Mountain Scholars, two national top 10 agricultural machinery teachers, and one outstanding teaching team in Jilin Province.

The Department of Agricultural Engineering currently has several research teams composited of doctoral supervisors, and doctors as the backbone, such as research teams for grain storage and transportation, facility agriculture, conservation farming, intelligent plant protection, harvesting equipment, and digital good design.

Talent training

The Department of Agricultural Engineering has made outstanding contributions to agricultural machinery design and manufacturing in China, as well as to the cultivation of agricultural engineering and related professionals. She has trained two academicians, one European academician, one expert of the Thousand Talents Program, four Changjiang Scholars, four national outstanding youth, and four well-known scholars in Europe and the United States.

The Department of Agricultural Engineering has always regarded the quality of talent cultivation as the lifeline. In addition to daily teaching activities, students have a large number of opportunities to participate in various innovation competitions, cultural activities, and volunteer service activities. In the past three years, the number of undergraduate graduates pursuing graduate studies has exceeded 50%, of which more than 3% have gone to famous universities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and other countries to continue their further education. Graduates are welcomed by Tsinghua University, Peking University, Zhejiang University, and other prestigious universities. Graduates can also work in companies, enterprises, government agencies, research institutes, and enterprises.

Supporting facilities

The Department of Agricultural Engineering currently has a professional laboratory area of 13784 square meters, with fixed assets of more than 114 million RMB, including more than 107 million RMB for scientific research and teaching equipment, and more than 120 sets of equipment which all of above 100 thousand RMB, such as soil tank testing systems, high-power tractors, tillage machines, sowing and fertilizing machines, spraying machines, plant protection drones, combined harvesters, and so on.

Looking forward to the future, the Department of Agricultural Engineering will focus on the strategic needs of national agricultural modernization, aim at national development goals and local economic construction, combine them with artificial intelligence, information technology, advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, and new materials, and take the construction of “A-” disciplines as an opportunity to further accelerate the development of agricultural engineering!

The bionics science and engineering discipline at Jilin University can be traced back to the 1970s, originating from the national key discipline of “Agricultural Mechanization Engineering” in the College of Biological and Agricultural Engineering. After the outstanding work of two generations of academicians, Chen Bingcong and Ren Luquan, in 2005, under the leadership of Academician Ren Luquan, Jilin University independently established the master's and doctoral programs in “Bionics Science and Engineering”, which was the first of its kind in China and one of the three interdisciplinary programs designated as a key construction project by Jilin University. In 2014, the bionics discipline was approved as a special discipline for national defense. Approved by the Ministry of Education in 2017, the discipline group “Mechanical and Bionic Engineering” was allowed to be one of the six independent construction disciplines (groups)planned and designed by Jilin University for “Double First-Class ”project, with Academician Ren Luquan as the head of the discipline group. In 2019, bionics science and engineering was approved by the Academic Degrees Committee of The State Council as a national level interdisciplinary discipline, taking the lead in constructing the "Bionics science and engineering" undergraduate-master-doctoral training system.

Bionics science and engineering discipline is aimed to orient towards the needs of the country and create a first-class team, it also adheres to interdisciplinary and target on the international frontier, taking natural approach as the core, and carrying out basic research on the application of bionics engineering. There are four main research fields of the discipline, which include ground mechanical de-attachment reduction bionic technology, bionic tribology and bionic materials, bionic walking technology for soft ground and bioprocessing machine design and bionics.

The discipline has formed an excellent academic team with the leading scholar academician Ren Luquan at the core and with professors and doctoral supervisors as the hard core and with middle-aged and young doctors as the back bone. The discipline has 72 personnel working for research and technique, including 36 professors (researchers), 20 associate professors (senior engineers). Among them, there are one academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, two members of the former Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council and one member of the current Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council, one national young and middle-aged expert with outstanding contributions, two recipients of the National Outstanding Young Scientists Foundation, one lecture professor, three Tang Aoqing Distinguished Professors of Jilin University, and two national candidates of the Ten Million Talents Project of the New Century (first and second level candidates) ,two recipients of the Ministry of Education’s cross (new) century outstanding talent cultivation program fund, three recipients of the Ministry of Education’s outstanding young teachers fund, Three backbone teachers of the Ministry of Education ,two senior experts of Jilin Province, five professional and technical talents with outstanding contributions in Jilin Province, three recipients of the Jilin Province Outstanding Youth Fund, and three Changbai Mountain Scholars. There is one innovation team in key fields of the Ministry of Science and Technology, two teams of major scientific and technological R&D talents in Jilin Province, and three teams of scientific and technological innovation in Jilin Province.

The discipline has established several international technology cooperation platforms, represented by the “National International Science and Technology Cooperation Base for Engineering Bionics” (Ministry of Science and Technology), the “Innovation and Intelligence Introduction Base for Engineering Bionics Technology and High-end Equipment” (State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs), the “Key Laboratory for International Cooperation of Jilin Province,” and the “Sino-British Joint Laboratory of Jilin University-University of Nottingham.” In 2018, the discipline collaborated with the Boeing-Tufts Alliance of the renowned US think tank institution Tufts University to jointly develop the “International Bionics Development Index (Da Vinci Index),” the world's first evaluation index for bionics development, establishing an international bionics think tank and an international bionics technology information network platform.

Based on the discipline, the “International Society of Bionic Engineering (ISBE)” was established, with more than 500 member institutions from over 85 countries and regions. The discipline also founded two important international academic journals, “Journal of Bionic Engineering” and “Droplet.” In 2022, the professor from the discipline served as the chairman of the ISO/TC266 International Bionics Standardization Technical Committee, with Jilin University as the chairman unit, leading the development of international bionics standardization under the ISO.

In 2019, relying on the team of Academician Ren Luquan, the discipline established the Jilin University Weihai Bionics Research Institute, focusing on four major areas of bionic machinery, bionic materials, bionic intelligence, and bionic health, devoted to bionics research, talent cultivation, achievement transformation, and international cooperation, vigorously promoting the rapid development of the bionics science and engineering discipline.

3The predecessor of College of Biology and Agricultural Engineering of Jilin University is the agricultural machinery specialty and tractor specialty of Changchun Automobile and Tractor College, which was founded in 1955. Since then, "making contributions to the agricultural machinery industry in New China" has become the unchanging initial intention of the older generation of agricultural machinery workers. Since 1957, the college began to recruit undergraduates, and began to train postgraduates in 1960. In 1981, it established a doctoral program in agricultural machinery design and manufacturing, and in 1989, it established a postdoctoral mobile station in agricultural engineering, which went through the Department of Agricultural Machinery of Changchun Automobile and Tractor College and the College of Agricultural Machinery Engineering of Jilin University of Technology. In May 2001, the College of Biological and Agricultural Engineering of Jilin University was established by agricultural engineering and its related disciplines. In the past 60 years, the college has formed a fine tradition and a solid school spirit, accumulated the training of "Ming Zhi devoted to intensive cultivation and innovation", and condensed the college spirit of self-reliance and accumulation, which is the foundation of China's agricultural machinery design and manufacturing specialty, the training of agricultural engineering and related professionals, the ground-vehicle system mechanics, high-speed precision sowing, bionic technology of ground mechanical desorption and drag reduction, agricultural system engineering and other fields, and the development of bionic theory in agricultural engineering, agricultural system engineering, etc.

The college has successively set up postgraduate disciplines such as agricultural mechanization engineering, agricultural biological environment and energy engineering, agricultural electrification and automation, bionic science and engineering, food science and engineering, agricultural and forestry economic management, fermentation engineering, etc., and set up undergraduate majors such as agricultural mechanization and automation, food science and engineering, food quality and safety, bioengineering, packaging engineering, agricultural and forestry economic management, etc. Agricultural mechanization engineering has been a national key discipline since 1988. The first-class discipline of agricultural engine

ering ranks among the best in previous discipline evaluations of the Ministry of Education. In the process of establishing the first-class discipline in Jilin University in 2014, agricultural engineering was listed as the peak discipline, and bionic science and engineering were listed as the characteristic interdisciplinary discipline. In 2017, the national "double first-class" construction started, and the disciplines of agricultural engineering and bionic science and engineering entered the national first-class discipline "mechanical and bionic engineering discipline group" approved by the Ministry of Education and independently built by Jilin University. The undergraduate major of agricultural mechanization and automation is the first batch of pilot majors for training outstanding engineers in the Ministry of Education, and the undergraduate major of agricultural and forestry economic management is the pilot major for reforming the education and training plan for outstanding agricultural and forestry talents in the Ministry of Education. "Bionic Science and Engineering" is listed as a new interdisciplinary subject, and has become a pilot undergraduate major in the national "New Engineering" teaching reform project