The Institute of Geotechnical Engineering, Fuzhou University, is one of the earliest institutions engaged in geotechnical engineering research in Fujian Province. In 2005, its geotechnical engineering discipline was approved as a key discipline of institutions of higher learning in Fujian Province. The Institute grew out of the Foundation Teaching and Research Office, Department of Civil Engineering, Fuzhou University, established by Gao Youchao, Xu Shaoman and other known professors in the early 1950s. It is devoted to in-depth scientific research in many research fields in geotechnical engineering, such as soil mechanics (basic engineering properties and regional soil characteristics), soft clay mechanics and foundation treatment, underground structure engineering, slope engineering, pile foundation engineering, and excavation pit engineering. In 2007, a doctoral program in geotechnical engineering was set up under the first-level doctoral program in civil engineering, and enrolled doctoral candidates in the same year. After years of development, our geotechnical engineering discipline has been in the lead in Fujian in terms of academic level. It has the most capable faculty in Fujian, and the earliest master's program and doctoral program in geotechnical engineering.

Now, the Institute has more than 40 doctoral and master's degree candidates, and 17 academic master supervisors in geotechnical engineering. It employs 5 full-time teachers, including 3 professors, 2 doctoral supervisors, 2 associate professors, and 1 top young innovative talent in Fujian Province. All full-time teachers have doctoral degrees. In recent years, this discipline has undertaken more than 10 projects, including those supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, doctoral supervisor projects supported by Doctoral Fund of Ministry of Education of China, key natural science projects of Fujian Province, those supported by Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province, with more than 100 high-quality papers published in core journals at home and abroad. The Institute also actively provides technology development services and undertook many enterprise-sponsored research projects.

As an institution subordinate to the College of Civil Engineering, the Institute of Geotechnical Engineering is responsible for teaching the courses related to soil mechanics and basic engineering for the programs in soil engineering, water resources engineering, traffic engineering and engineering management of the College as well as the construction of Soil Mechanics, a provincial excellent course, and bilingual teaching of Soil Mechanics. It is also responsible for teaching a series of courses for master's degree and doctoral candidates majoring in geotechnical engineering. It actively strengthens the construction of geotechnical laboratories, and has purchased a series of high-precision geotechnical test instruments and a batch of geotechnical engineering numerical analysis software, actively creating favorable conditions for scientific research and master's candidates training in the discipline.

By virtue of the opportunity of building high-level universities, the Institute of Geotechnical Engineering plans to make the geotechnical engineering discipline become a featured course in the Western Taiwan Straits Economic Zone and make itself an influential and important high-level talent training and scientific research center in geotechnical engineering in the southeast coastal areas by taking the following measures: focusing on enhancing the strength of geotechnical engineering, its provincial key discipline, determining key research interests of major disciplines, strengthening the construction of scientific research team, improving the innovation capacity, building a comprehensive platform for geotechnical engineering experimental research in the Western Taiwan Straits Economic Zone, and strengthening the cooperation between "enterprises, universities, and research institutes".