The College of Informatics of Huazhong Agricultural University originated from the Computer Teaching and Research Section established by the former Basic Course Department in the mid-1980s and the Bioinformatics Teaching and Research Section and Bioinformatics Research Center of the College of Life Science and Technology established at the beginning of this century. In April 2014, in order to further optimize the layout of discipline and specialty structure and promote the development of information discipline, the University officially established the College of Informatics on the basis of the Bioinformatics Teaching and Research Section and Bioinformatics Research Center of the College of Life Science and Technology, Computer Science and Technology Department, Mathematics Department (partial) and Chemistry Department (partial) of the College of Science, and Computing Center.
The college always adheres to the school running vision of "A college should be like a college and teachers like teachers", practices the value pursuit of "For the glory of human mind", follows the path of strengthening the college of "Integrating into the industrial system, joining the international cycle", comprehensively implements the fundamental task of morality education, focuses on the goal of building a world-class university with distinctive characteristics, adheres to strong cross characteristics, the overall level and creating local advantages, constantly enhance the core competitiveness and school running level of college , and strive to become a national innovation base for Bioinformatics and Agricultural Information Technology and a training base of high-quality research talents in Information Technology.
The college has five departments: Department of Computer Science, Department of Bioinformatics, Department of Data Science and Big Data Technology, Department of Artificial Intelligence and Public Education Department of Computer Sciences. It has established the Agricultural Bioinformatics Key Laboratory of Hubei Province, Hubei Engineering Technology Research Center of Agricultural Big Data and Computer and Information Technology Experimental Teaching Center. There are currently 97 faculty members, including 15 professors, 45 associate professors, 19 lecturers, and 18 administrative and experimental staff.
1.Discipline Specialty
The college has second-level doctoral and master's programs in Bioinformatics and Agricultural Information Engineering, first-level master's program in Computer Science and Technology, and master's degree in Electronic Information. It also has four undergraduate majors including Computer Science and Technology, Bioinformatics, Data science and Big Data Technology and Artificial Intelligence.
Bioinformatics, as a second-level discipline of biology, was selected as a "Double First-Class" construction discipline; the two majors of Bioinformatics, Computer Science and Technology are provincial-level first-class construction undergraduate majors. Among them, the construction of Bioinformatics major is firmly in the forefront of the country. It has been approved as an undergraduate program for talent training in strategic emerging pillar industries in Hubei Province. According to the "Chinese Universities and Professional Disciplines Evaluation Report" launched by the Chinese Science Evaluation Research Center (RCCSE), Chinese Education Quality Evaluation Research Center, Chinese Science and Education Evaluation Website in Wuhan University, Bioinformatics major ranked first in the similar colleges and universities for four times, and was selected as the "Top 100 Professionals" in the "2015 Undergraduate Salary Ranking List". Computer Science and Technology major was approved nationwide "Pilot Program for Computer professional system ability training" major in 2015.
2. Talent Training and Foreign Exchanges
The college adheres to the education concept of "Teachers have students in their hearts, and students have the world in their hearts", and always puts the comprehensive development of students' morality, intelligence, sports, aesthetics, and labor in the first place. There are now 1,234 full-time students, including 994 undergraduates, 180 postgraduates, and 60 doctoral students. A talent training system with a coordinated scale, structure, and quality has initially formed.
The college is committed to cultivating high-level talents with international vision, critical thinking, innovative spirit and practical ability to lead the future development of science and technology and society. During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, more than 40 teachers from the college went to Russia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, France, Hong Kong, Macau and other countries and regions to carry out cooperation and exchanges, and successively sent more than 80 students to the National University of Singapore and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, City University of Hong Kong, University of Macau and other institutes to carry out learning exchanges, inviting more than 100 foreign (overseas) experts visit the school.
The college hosted International Symposium on 3D Genomics for five times, hosted the 17th Asia Pacific Bioinformatics Conference and the second Sino-Russian Symposium on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. In 2017, our college formally signed a cooperation agreement on the "Joint Training 3 + 2 Project for Undergraduate and Master Students" with the College of Engineering of the University of Missouri; In 2019, the college reached cooperation intention with the Aberystwyth University and the Abertay University in the UK; Since 2016, our college has successively signed Undergraduate Innovative Talents Co-Cultivation Agreement or School-Enterprise Joint Laboratory cooperation and set up scholarships with Shanghai Personal Biotechnology Co., Ltd, Huawei Wuhan Institute, BIG, CP Group, Inspur Inc and so on.
Since its establishment, the college has actively organized students to participate in innovation and entrepreneurship activities. The college student team has won the iGEM Global Gold Award 6 times, won the first prize of the ASC18 World University Student Supercomputer Competition, the first prize of the Application Challenge of the 4th National Universities Mobile Internet Application Development and Innovation Competition, the gold award of The 3rd China "Internet +" University Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition and other honors. The college summer practice team was selected as the "National Most Influential Project" in 2017. In addition, the college insists on holding summer camps, increases the incentives for recommended students without examination, and strengthens the quality of student training throughout the process. It was rated as the Advanced Group for Employment in 2019. The college's annual employment rate, employment salary and employment satisfaction rate are among the top of the school.
3. Scientific Research and Team Building
The college holds on the discipline development path of "Entering the mainstream, strengthening characteristics, and creating advantages", with Artificial Intelligence as the lead, forming advantages in the field of Bioinformatics, and highlighting its characteristics in the field of Agricultural Informatics. During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, 50 new National Natural Science Foundation projects and other national-level projects, 17 provincial and ministerial-level scientific research projects were added, with a total scientific research funding of 44.6 million yuan, of which 5.65 million yuan was for horizontal research. Authorized 9 patents, published 241 papers included in SCI and EI, and transformed 5 scientific research results. Three-dimensional genomics research was selected into the "2016 Scientific Development Report" of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Relying on the college, the Hubei Provincial Bioinformatics Society was established.
The college currently has two innovation groups from the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province, and one outstanding young and middle-aged science and technology innovation team from Hubei Province colleges and universities. Systems and Synthetic Biology, Computational Biology, Three-Dimensional Genomics, Artificial Intelligence and Knowledge Discovery, Machine Learning and Computer Vision, Smart Agriculture, Smart Medical and Artificial Intelligence Internet of Things teams have gradually formed. Many teachers have been selected into various national, provincial and ministerial talent programs (projects).
4. Social Services
The college insists on facing the main economic battlefield and major national needs, integrating into the industrial system, and promoting cooperation between industry, university and research. During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, we have successively carried out strategic cooperation with Wuhan Baiyaolianke, Guangxi Yangxiang Group, Guangzhou Shadow Technology, Hunan Meishiliu, Hunan Molv, Guangzhou Chengyi Group, Wuhan Biobank, Taihe Hospital, and so on. More than 10 horizontal projects have been signed, with a funding of more than 20 million yuan, and the transformation of scientific and technological achievements has been made. The college has successively helped the poor in Sanfangping Village in Wufeng County, and Huangyan Village in Jianshi County, docked with Shiyan City to carry out the "Rural Revitalization Jingchu Tour", and carried out counterpart support to Talimu University and Shihezi University.（Data statistics up to now，Translator:Rao Xin Jie，Zeng Xi.）