In 2006, the College of Materials Science and Engineering (CMSE) of Shenzhen University was established, whose predecessor was the Department of Materials Science and Engineering founded in 1998. The undergraduate major ‘Materials Science and Engineering’ is a key priority discipline of Guangdong Province. The students of CMSE can choose between two undergraduate majors, ‘Materials Science and Engineering’ and ‘Polymer Materials and Engineering’, both of which have been approved as national first-class undergraduate majors, and the ‘Polymer Materials and Engineering’ program has been certified through the national engineering education professional accreditation in June 2023. CMSE is qualified to grant a first-level doctoral program in Materials Science and Engineering, an academic master’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering, and a professional master’s degree in Materials and Chemical Engineering. Also, CMSE co-cultivates PhD students with universities in Hong Kong and Macao. In July 2022, the discipline of Materials Science entered the ESI global top 1‰, which is the second ESI global top 1‰ discipline of Shenzhen University. As of September 2026, it is ranked 33rd worldwide and 22nd nationwide in the ESI rankings. In 2024, it was ranked 49th in the world (25th in China) in the ShanghaiRanking's Global Ranking of Academic Subjects. Since 2020, it has held an A rating in the Times Higher Education China Subject Ratings.

Currently, 129 staff members work in CMSE, including 103 full-time faculty. Among them are 1 academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1 fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, 4 national-level talents, 14 national-level young talents, 1 outstanding foreign young talent, 11 Guangdong Outstanding Young Scholars, 1 Guangdong Excellent Young Scholar, 3 awardees of the Guangdong Special Support Program, 4 awardees of the Pearl River Talent Program, 1 awardee of the Young Talent Support Project, and 49 Ph.D. supervisors. Three academician workstations are affiliated with the College: the AIE Research Center, the Smart Water Research Center, and the Academician Workstation for Intelligent Materials. The College also hosts 3 Shenzhen Peacock Program teams. At present, 782 undergraduates, 710 postgraduates, 144 in-station postdoctoral researchers and 54 full-time research fellows are affiliated with CMSE. In 2026, the postgraduate enrollment rate of CMSE’s undergraduates reaches 62%, and the undergraduate employment rate stands at 92.96%, ranking second among all colleges of Shenzhen University. Furthermore, the initial employment rate for the 2026 cohort of master’s graduates is 98.05%, with a professional relevance rate of 94.16%.

CMSE is a core constituent of the State Key Laboratory of Radio Frequency Heterogeneous Integration at Shenzhen University. It also houses the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Energy Materials Service Safety, the Guangdong Engineering Research Center for Functional Materials Interfaces, the Guangdong Provincial Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center for Higher Education, and five Shenzhen municipal key laboratories: the Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Special Functional Materials, the Shenzhen Engineering Laboratory for Advanced Ceramic Technology, the Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials and Manufacturing Technology, the Shenzhen Key Laboratory of New Information Display and Storage Materials, and the Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Energy Electrocatalytic Materials. CMSE now possesses 6,734 sets of experimental equipment with a total value of over RMB 400 million, including 164 sets of equipment each worth more than RMB 500,000, and a total laboratory area of nearly 27,000 square meters. In the past five years, CMSE has undertaken 599 scientific research projects in total, including 120 national-level projects, with combined funding of RMB 390 million. Over the same period, more than 2,500 SCI-indexed academic papers have been published, over 1,300 of which fall into the Q1 category, including high-impact papers such as Science.

The College of Materials Science and Engineering is rooted in Shenzhen, leverages the strengths of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, engages with the global academic community, focuses on advanced functional materials, and conducts research on new energy materials, polymer materials, optoelectronic materials, electronic information materials, intelligent materials, and other related fields. The College aims to cultivate high-quality innovative and entrepreneurial talents, and build a high-level scientific and technological innovation base in the field of new materials.

(This page was updated in October 2026)