My department is not concerned with publishing, is this a valid reason to move to a different one? I received a scholarship from a funding organization to do my PhD. I chose a department within a reputable research center to do my PhD at, and I did start working there 2 months ago. 

My career ambitions are to proceed in the academic career path, eventually becoming a professor in my field. 

As far as I know, your experience as an academic (or as a researcher) is defined based on your h-index, citations count and publications count. The more strong papers I publish during and after my PhD, the better position I can get in the future. Please correct me if I am wrong about this.

Now in the place I started working at, turned out to be more of an engineering department. They are not concerned with publishing as much as they are concerned with applications to show off to the industry. Most of the PhD students working here intend to work in the industry (factories or companies). Absolutely no PhD student here is intending to work in Academia. 

I am very concerned that I might be at the wrong place. I was hoping the place where I do my PhD at would encourage publishing, and involve me in their publications. I still need to learn how to do proper evaluations in our field, I thought that's how I learn it, by getting involved in papers they submit at top venues (not necessarily being a co-author, but just to learn by observing). They are not concerned with submitting papers to top venues because they think their work is more of applications than the research such venues would expect. Moreover, from their perspective it is not worth the effort, because it won't give them better chances in the industry.

Nevertheless, they understand my situation and they will support me financially and by providing resources if I decide to publish at top conferences. But I just feel now there's no hope I can learn to write a high quality paper given these conditions.

As I mentioned at the beginning, my funding comes from a third-party organization. Technically I can switch to a different department, and there is a department I have in mind that belongs to another branch of that same research center, located in a nearby city, they are more research-oriented and they work in the same field. It will not be easy to do that and I will have wasted a lot of time by the time I move out, but it is still doable.

So.. is it worth the hassle?

P.S. These events are taking place in Europe, where in most of the cases you spend your entire period as a PhD student working on your thesis, unlike the courses-then-thesis style in USA.
I did start working there 2 months ago.


and 


  It will not be easy to do that and I will have wasted a lot of time by the time I move out


don't fit well together. If you're worried about the 2 months you've spent, I'd say that's insignificant. If you're worried that it might take (with application processing etc) upto a year, I'd say the same thing. Think of a 30-40 year long research career. A year (or 2 months) is not a long time. 

It sounds like you've done your homework and have a plan for what you want to do, and you're just worried about taking the leap. Take it ! You only get one career, and taking action to further it is always "worth the hassle".