Faculty of Environment

1. Development History

Environmental Science discipline was established by Ministry of Education and Training under Decision No. 166/QQĐ – BGD& ĐT in 13^th January, 2004 on Environmental Science Training Program. In the first enrollment year, there were three environmental science classes with more than 150 students. At that time, the discipline coped with many difficulties such as lack of experimental laboratories, computer rooms and other facilities.   Staffs actively linked to internal functional departments of the University and external sponsors to complete assigned tasks. During the ten years of construction and development, the faculty of Natural Resources and Environment wereincreasingly developed and become one of the leading faculties in the Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry with the largest number of students, nearly 3000 full-time students in majors: Land Management, Environmental Science, Land Management and Environmental Science while the Faculty also trains more than 1000 part-time students, approximately 400 students majoring in Land Management Master Program and 12 PhD students. Moreover, the Faculty imported an Advanced Education Program in Environmental Science and Management from the University of California, David, USA with nearly 200 students including international and domestic students, and computer facilities, experimental laboratories also met the requirements for teaching and research of students and teachers.

The constant development on training scale in the field of Natural Resources and Environment of the University (Undergraduate and Postgraduate Programs) over the last years has been demonstrating the quality of training, the prestige of Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry and continuously satisfying the social demands. To meet human resource development needs in natural resource and Environment sector of the country by 2012-2020, based on possibility and development strategy of the University in 2013-2020 period. Two new faculties (Faculty of Natural Resources Management and The Faculty of Environment) were separated from the Faculty of Natural Resources and Environment in 2013 under Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry. Their current teaching staffs and facilities are based mainly on teaching staffs of the former Faculty of Natural Resources and Environment.

  The Faculty of Environment of Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry was established in 18^th December, 2013 by the president of Thai Nguyen University under Decision No. 1762/QĐ-ĐHTN on the establishment of the Faculty of Environment and the Faculty of Natural Resources Management with the purpose of meeting and solving environmental problems in socio-economic development process and global climate change.

The establishment of the faculty of environment has been continued, inherited and strengthened great traditional values from the former faculty of Natural Resources and Environment over the last 10 years and marked an important point in training staffs in the field of environmental science which suits to international trends, and become a leading multi-discipline training center of Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry, Thai Nguyen University as well as a vital scientific and research institution in midland, northern mountainous region of Vietnam.

2. Missions and Functions

The missions of the Faculty are to train high qualified manpower in the areas of Environmental Engineering, Science and Management from undergraduate program, master program to PhD program. Besides, the faculty also develops short-term training programs, implements scientific and technological transfer projects in the Natural Resources and Environment as well as natural conservation, biodiversity preservation, environmental impact assessment, environmental pollution monitor and management to adapt to global warming and climate change.

3. Organizational Structure

* The Diagram of Structure

* Faculty has 24 staff and faculty. Including: 5 Associate Professor; 6 doctoral and 15 masters.

Dean Board

Teaching and research staffs

4. Training programs

Undergraduate

1. Environmental science

2. Environmental and Natural Resource Economics

Postgraduate

1. Master of Environmental Science

2. PhD in Environmental Sciences

5. Scientific research and technology transfer

Promoting the advantages of a regional university, Faculty of Environment of TUAF has always been one of the leading higher education institutions in the field of Environment and Climate Change for the Northern Mountainous region of Vietnam. The research focuses on main directions: basic research to update the regional and international level; technology in environmental treatment, and application-oriented research and development into practice to address specific pollution problems. With highly qualified, experienced, dedicated staffs, Faculty of Environment is always acutely aware that scientific research is an important and strategic task, promotes innovation in teaching - learningmethods, improves training quality and staff qualifications, contributes to the development of science - technology and solves practical problems to meet thesocial - economic development. Besides training high qualified undergraduate, postgraduate students in the field of Environmental Science, the Faculty's academic staffs has chaired and participated in many scientific research projects at all levels. Themes of projects were developed and implemented consistent with key task of the environment sector, contributing positively to resolving the problem of environmental protection; Special priority for topicssolving the local environment tasks. The research results obtained encouraging achievements, increasing both the number, scale and quality.  Research findings and scientific products not only support for training programs but also have promising applications, scientific value and somehave high practical value.

In the past 5 years, the Environment department is funded nearly 20 billion VND to implement the project at all levels (the Protocol, ministry, province, and university levels).

Environmental Science actively selects priority research directions and focuses on building strong research team. Up to present, many research groups are formed and developed following advanced research university (in both directions: multidisciplinary, integrated and depth, toward the high scientific and technology products, high-value applications). In science and technology activities, the Faculty was awarded many merit certificates from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Education and Training, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the province, cities in the northern mountain regions. The achievements of scientific research by staffs and students of Environment faculty has continuously increased. The Faculty encourages its research staffs establishing and maintaining relations of international cooperation with many universities and research institutes in different nations. From the international cooperation program, the number of personnel to exchange, short-term interns and young staff, postgraduate students are educated in oversea institutions aremore and more increasing.

Scientific research activities of students are regularly maintained and have good results. The faculty organizes annual scientific conference for students. Faculty was received the Minister of Education and Training certificate of merit for scientific research of students. Many projects were selected to attend research competitions of Ministry of Education and Training and Thai Nguyen University, in which many works were awarded. Faculty of Environment strives to be the flagship of the student's scientific research at Thai Nguyen University.

The Faculty is always interested in improving the efficiency of science and technology management, promoting the creative dynamism, autonomy and self-responsibility of all scientists, lecturers and students to collect effective mobilization and utilization of domestic and foreign resources.

6. Co-operation in training and research

International cooperation has received the interest of the faculty since the inception. In recent years, the direction of cooperation has been expanded and varied including the introduction of staffs to be trained at international institutions, participate in International Scientific Conferences; cooperation in training and scientific research with some foreign universities; facilitating young teachers participate in short-term courses in order to approach with the scientific research environment in the developed countries.

Faculty have signed cooperation with:

- University of Goettingen and University of Hamburg, Federal Republic of Germany.

- Kochi University, Japan.

- Environmental Faculty, University of California (UC Davis), USA.

- Institute of independent research environmental issues and nuclear safety, the Ministry of Environment, Federal Republic of Germany.

International cooperation has yielded good results in training and scientific research assistance, much documentation about training methods and scientific research are added, staffs in the faculty have more experience in teaching.

7. Contact information

Faculty of Environment

Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry

Tel: 0280.3851.425 Fax: 0280.3852.921

Email: khoamoitruong@gmail.com