The School of Geography and Environmental Science was first established as the Geography Department of Jin’gu University in 1953, which was renamed as the Geology and Geography Department of Hebei University in 1960. In 1962, it merged with Tianjin Normal College and was renamed the Geography Department of Tianjin Normal University in 1982. Later in 2001, the School of Urban and Environmental Sciences was established, and in 2017 it was renamed the School of Geography and Environmental Science.
With a foundation in geography, the school covers disciplines of environmental science, ecology, information science, and management science. It has a first-level doctoral degree authorization point in geography, and three second-level disciplinary directions including physical geography, human geography, and cartography and geographic information systems. It also has a first-level master's degree authorization point in geography, and four second-level disciplinary directions, namely, physical geography, human geography, cartography and geographic information systems, and environmental geography. There are five undergraduate programs: geography science, geography science (normal), human geography and urban and rural planning, geographic information science, and environmental science, among which the geography science and geographic information science programs have been approved as national-level first-class undergraduate programs.
The school boasts four provincial-level platforms: the Tianjin Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Water Environment, the Tianjin Geospatial Information Technology Engineering Center, the Tianjin Geographical Science Popularization Base, and the Free Trade Zone Institute of Tianjin Normal University (indexed by the China Think Tank Index). It also has a jointly established a research institute. In addition, there is a key laboratory, three collaborative innovation centers, and nine research and think tanks at the university level, as well as 11 professional teaching and research laboratories. The school has also established six internships bases throughout the country.
Today the school has 80 full-time teachers, of which professors and associate professors account for 63.7 percent, and 91 percent hold a doctoral degree. It has one provincial-level scientific research innovation team, one provincial-level teaching team, and one Tianjin high-level university innovation team. The school has more than 30 talents, including Distinguished Teachers in the Higher Education Institutions of Tianjin, Leading Discipline Talents in Universities, and Innovative Talents among the Young and Middle-aged Backbone Personnel at Universities.
The school takes talent and team building as its core, and continuously promotes discipline integration to build an international platform for teaching, research, and talent development, and to promote the leapfrog development of traditional geography driven by innovation.
TNU is the only one of its kind in Tianjin that focuses on training high-quality teachers for basic education. It has rich educational resources, excellent facilities and equipment, a strong humanistic spirit, a beautiful and elegant environment.
TNU has a complete range of disciplines and has outstanding advantages in its majors and has made significant achievements in cultivating talents.
TNU has a strong research capacity with abundant high-quality research practice bases. They have been approved for over 300 national-level projects and won numerous national awards for outstanding achievements.
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TNU adheres to open education and conducts extensive international exchanges and cooperation. It proactively connects the Belt and Road Initiative, and actively serves the national strategy of "Chinese culture going global".
TNU cooperates with countries including Russia, Japan, and South Korea to build four Sino-foreign cooperative education projects, and its scale of international student training ranks among the top in Tianjin.
TNU adheres to open education and conducts extensive international exchanges and cooperation. It proactively connects the Belt and Road Initiative.
