The School of Materials and Metallurgy (SMM) of WUST was formed through merging of former College of Materials with College of Metallurgy of WUST in 1999. And its establishment starts with Ironmaking, Steelmaking and Steel Rolling specialties set up in 1953 in South Central College of Iron and Steel , the forerunner of WUST , together with the Refractory Materials speciality formed in 1961 ,as well as the Metal Materials and Heat Treatment speciality developed in 1974 .With the development of over 60 years, The School of Materials and Metallurgy (SMM) has reached great-leap-forward development in discipline construction, scientific research,education and teaching.

SMM provides six undergraduate programs, including Inorganic Non-metallic Materials Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering, Metallic Materials Engineering, Materials Processing and Controlling Engineering, Energy and Power Engineering, and Materials Chemistry. Among which Inorganic Non-metallic Materials Engineering program and Metallurgical Engineering program were graded by the Ministry of Education as the Program with Distinctive Features at the National Level, and the majors of Inorganic Non-metallic Materials Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering , Materials Processing, and Controlling Engineering are the Branded Majors of Hubei Province.

SMM has two first-level disciplines doctoral (PhD) programs and postgraduate programs (Materials Engineering, and Metallurgical Engineering), covering seven secondary discipline degree authorization programs for master’s degree and doctoral degree (Materials Physical Chemistry, Materials Science, Materials Processing Engineering, Physical Chemistry of Metallurgy, Ferrous Metallurgy, Non-ferrous Metallurgy and Metallurgical Thermal Engineering).Materials Science and Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering also offer Engineering Programs for Master Degree, and there are two post-doctoral research centers, both in Materials Science and Engineering, and Metallurgical Engineering. Besides, Materials Science is the National Key Discipline, and Materials Science and Engineering together with Metallurgical Engineering are the Key Discipline and Preponderant Discipline of Hubei Province. In addition, Materials Science is ranked Top 1% Discipline by ESI.

Currently,SMM has 208 full-time academic staff members, including 62 professors(among whom 35 of them are second grade or third grade professors), two ‘Thousand Talents Plan’ experts, one expert in the national ‘New Century Hundred Million Talent Project’ ,three Hubei Province ‘Hundred Talent Plan’ distinguished professors, fourteen ‘Chutian Scholar Plan’ distinguished professors, one National Outstanding Teacher, one National Teacher’s Moral Model, three experts obtaining the special allowance of State Council or provincial government,three ‘New Century Excellent Talents in University Program’experts, eight young and middle-aged experts with outstanding contributions in Hubei Province, five recipients of Baosteel Outstanding Teachers Award, three teachers with the title of Outstanding Teachers and Teacher’s Moral Model of Hubei Province. Besides, SMM has 2696 students in total, including 2162 undergraduate students, 445 master students and 89doctoral candidates.

SMM has actively explored new models of undergraduate training and has implemented the Metallurgical Type of Top Creative Talents Cultivating Experimental Class, Inorganic Nonmetal Major Professional Excellence Engineers Developing Plan, Material Forming and Controlling Engineering Specialty Strategic Emerging (Pillar) Industry Personnel Training Plan. Moreover, a kind of new training plan and mentoring system have been put into effect. Besides, we have established teaching platforms including one National-level Talent Training Model Innovation Experimental Area and one Hubei Province Materials Science Basic Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center and others, and we have also developed an interdisciplinary national teaching team for Inorganic Non-metallic Materials Engineering. We have built a national quality resource sharing course and 6 provincial level elaborate courses and video open courses. In recent years, our students have won more than 30 awards annually either in science, or in technology innovation and skill competitions both at home and abroad.

SMM has established a lot of scientific research and testing institutions, including the State Key Laboratory of Refractories and Metallurgy jointly built by the provincial government and the Ministry of Education of the country, National-provincial Joint Engineering Research Center of High Temperature Materials and Lining Technology, the Key Laboratory for ferrous metallurgy and resources utilization of ministry of education, the Hubei Provincial Key Laboratory of Iron and Metallurgy, and the Hubei Province Engineering Research Center of Metallurgical Secondary Resource, the Hubei Provincial Engineering Research Center of High Temperature Materials and Lining Technology, Hubei Province Research and Application Center of Generic Technology of Metallurgy Material for Small and Medium Enterprises, the Hubei Provincial quality supervision and inspection center for refractories, Wuhan Engineering Research Center of Refractory and High Temperature Ceramics, Wuhan Technology Research Center of Iron and Steel Metallurgical Engineering, Institute of Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, Scientific Research Base of Material Surface and Interface, Scientific Research Base of High-precision Rolling Technology and New Material Processing, and Standard Sample Research Institute. In the past five years, SMM has hosted and undertaken more than 90 national-level projects such as the national “973”, “863”, national “Twelfth Five-Year” project of national science and technology supporting plan, National Key R&D Program of China, and National Natural Science Foundation of China. And we have won 28 scientific and technological achievement awards on provincial level and ministerial level, including 1 second prize of national science, technology and invention and 1 second prize of National Scientific and Technological Progress Award. Besides, we have published more than 1,000 academic papers (over 500 SCI papers), authorized more than 300 national invention patents, applied for 3 international patents and established 2 international standards, 6 national standards, and 7 industry standards.

SMM actively innovates the university-enterprise and university-local government cooperation models. And we have built strong relationships with many large and medium enterprises and research institutes such as Baowu Group, China Railway Construction Corporation Limited, China General Nuclear Power Group, Aluminum corporation of China, Dongfeng Auto Mobile Corporation Limited, etc. Moreover, the “Punai Scholarship”, “Lier Scholarship”, “Kelisheng Scholarship” and “Citic Niobium Steel Scholarship” were established.

In addition, SMM attaches great importance to international academic exchange and cooperation, and we have established long-term cooperative relations with more than 20 universities and research institutes in United States, Britain, Germany, Japan, Sweden and Austria. Over the past three years, we have organized more than 50 students to study and exchange in Europe, which enabled us to form a new pattern of all-round international exchanges and cooperation.

Over the past 60 years, SMM has educated more than 10,000 graduates. And a number of outstanding alumni have grown into academicians of the Chinese academy of engineering, distinguished experts and scholars, enterprise managers and technical backbones, party and government leaders at all levels and leaders in various enterprises.

SMM adheres to the school motto of “Striving for great virtue and profound knowledge, praising real and restraining aeriality”, And we will strive to bring discipline construction and personnel training to a new level with the purposes of making unremitting efforts to cultivate more high-quality talents in the field of materials and metallurgy.