The Department of Health and Environmental Sciences aims to enhance its profile locally and globally as a leading research-intensive department that advances knowledge and produces high-quality graduates to meet the challenges of health and environmental changes in China. We aim to gain recognition as a leading research provider in Jiangsu Province and beyond.

Research strategy

Research within the Department is primarily devoted to questions of fundamental importance, but also includes applied research relevant locally, nationally, and internationally. Our research is interdisciplinary in nature, and we aim to embrace disciplines outside the department and combine expertise from other complementary departments. We play a key role in contributing to the overall research strategy of XJTLU. As opportunities arise both within and outside of XJTLU, we would anticipate contributing to other themes. To achieve our aims we will:

• Draw on the interdisciplinary nature of health and environmental sciences to carry out fundamental and applied research in areas of established strengths. We will also seek out emerging opportunities, both internally and externally
• Attract and retain world-class academic staff to engage in cutting-edge research activity. Staff recruitment will be primarily driven by our research agenda. We also aim to recruit high-quality undergraduate and postgraduate students
• Secure local, national and international funding to carry out fundamental and applied research
• Provide the infrastructure and services essential to support the training of undergraduate and graduate students and to conduct leading-edge research
• Engage with academic and industrial partners within and outside of XJTLU to promote and support interdisciplinary research, research networking and research collaborations
• Promote our research locally, nationally and internationally through publications in high-impact journals and presentations at strategic internationally recognised conferences.

Current strengths and emerging research opportunities

In the field of Health and Environmental Sciences, international academic staff are actively engaged in world-class research in diverse areas including:

• Epidemiology of communicable and non-communicable diseases
• Urbanisation and healthy cities
• Inequality and determinants of health
• Medical anthropology
• Biostatistics
• Healthcare reform
• Outbreak investigation
• Health economics
• Global health
• Maternal-child health
• Management of non-communicable diseases
• Environmental health
• Human nutrition
• Landscape ecology
• Ecosystem services
• Environmental chemistry
• Environmental biology
• Environmental remediation
• Biogeochemistry
• Climate change
• Sustainable energy research
• Fresh water ecology
• Soil ecology
• GIS and remote sensing
• Water quality
• Sediment dynamics
• Global change ecology

The Department works collaboratively with other departments at XJTLU, as well as local and regional organisations in China, external organisations and international universities such as the University of Oxford, University College London, the Karolinska Institutet, and the University of Liverpool.

We are committed to maintaining our core research focus on contemporary environmental issues in China, but will be flexible and open to opportunities that may arise locally, nationally or internationally.