The School of Biological and Chemical Engineering was established on the basis of the Department of Biological and Chemical Engineering which was one of the earliest founded departments in Zhejiang University of Science and Technology. The school holds 1,127 on-campus students at present and has developed into 5 degree programs including ‘Chemical Engineering and Technology’, ‘Food Science and Engineering’, ‘Biological Engineering’, ‘Pharmaceutical Engineering’, and ‘Materials Science and Engineering’. There are 1 Provincial Key Lab,5 research institutes and 6 joint research centers. They are Zhejiang Provincial Key Lab for Chem & Bio Processing Technology of Agricultural Products , ‘Research Institute of Fine Chemicals’, ‘Research Institute of Food Science and Engineering’, ‘Research Institute of Biological Engineering’, ‘Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Engineering’, ‘Research Institute of Functional Materials’, ‘Research Center of Analysis and Test’, ‘ZUST- XinAn Chemical Joint Research Center of Functional Biological Products’, ‘ZUST – HangZhou HuaDan Joint Research Center of Mushroom’, ‘ZUST – HuaXian Paint Joint Research Center of Surface Technology’ and etc.. The course of ‘Applied Chemistry’ is a key subject supported by Zhejiang Government while ‘Food Engineering’ is a university-level key subject.

The school attaches much importance to cross-subject education upon a thorough consideration that the five programmes are based on same chemical principles and process engineering, which makes a distinctive quality of the instruction of the School of Biological and Chemical Engineering and help to promote the initial combination of the application of chemical technology and biological technology based on agricultural product processing.

At present, there are 68 staffs in total with 57 teachers. There are 29 senior title staffs, with 11 professors or senior engineers；there are 21 doctors，11 on-job Ph.D candidates, and 11 staffs with overseas educational background and 23 staffs with years of working experience of enterprises. The school also invited over 50 home and overseas university professors or engineers to be visiting professors.

The school of Biological and Chemical Engineering has been equipped with biochemical labs which are supported by provincial finance government, as well as basic chemistry and chemical engineering labs. The overall area of labs is about 4000 sq.m. The school labs have been equipped with HPLC, Gas Chromatography, ultraviolet spectrometer, infrared spectrometry, Fluorescence Spectroscopy, atomic absorption and amino acid analyzer etc. The total value of the equipment exceeds RMB 8 million Yuan.

In recent years, the School of Biological and Chemical Engineering has directed and undertaken over 100 research projects, for instance, Transforming Gene Project for the Ministry of Science and Technology, Key Scientific Research Project for the Ministry of Education, the State Torch Project, Zhejiang Province’ Important Science and Technology Tackled Project, Project for Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province and Important Transverse Industrial Development Project etc. The annual scientific research fund reaches RMB 5 million Yuan.

The School of Biological and Chemical Engineering is the executive council member unit of Zhejiang Provincial Chemical Industry and Engineering Society and Zhejiang Provincial Food Society. It is also the member of Zhejiang Provincial Food Industrial Society and Zhejiang Provincial Food Addictives Industrial Society. In addition, the school is the expert team member of Zhejiang Provincial Meet Products Industrial Society and Zhejiang Provincial Agricultural Products’ Deep Processing Society.

In 2007, there are 60 to 90 graduates in each degree grogrammes of Food Engineering, Biological Engineering, Pharmaceutical Engineering and Chemical Engineering.