China has initiated a groundbreaking higher education pilot program designed to cultivate top-tier interdisciplinary talent by enabling doctoral candidates to concurrently pursue a master’s degree in a distinct field. This strategic national initiative, unveiled by the State Council Academic Degrees Committee, directly addresses the escalating demand for scholars capable of solving complex, cross-boundary challenges in science, technology, and critical industries.
The program mandates a rigorous framework. Participating universities must leverage their most advantaged disciplines and established interdisciplinary platforms. Both degree-granting disciplines are generally required to hold doctoral conferring authority, with the primary PhD discipline expected to rank among the nation’s elite. Each institution must develop meticulous implementation plans, subject to evaluation by a panel of no fewer than seven experts.
A core tenet of the curriculum is fulfilling the essential requirements of both degrees while deliberately integrating multidisciplinary knowledge and significantly enhancing interdisciplinary research capabilities. Crucially, the master’s research must intersect with and substantively support the doctoral research. To facilitate this, universities are encouraged to utilize interdisciplinary centers for student guidance and management.
Incorporating a robust quality assurance mechanism, the program features a structured exit pathway. Students failing to meet doctoral requirements or choosing to withdraw may still qualify for the master’s degree if eligible. Those unable to fulfill the dual master’s criteria can receive formal recognition for completed coursework.
Targeting current doctoral students through a secondary selection process, the program identifies individuals demonstrating exceptional capacity and foundational aptitude for an additional rigorous master’s. Participants retain their original doctoral enrollment status. Separate theses or practical achievements are mandatory for each degree, with the master’s degree conferred concurrently with or subsequent to the doctorate.
Oversight is stringent. Universities must conduct comprehensive mid-term evaluations in the third year and final assessments in the fifth year, publicly disclosing the results. The national committee will dynamically monitor quality nationwide, possessing the authority to impose sanctions or revoke degree-granting rights for underperforming institutions.
An official from the Ministry of Education emphasized the program’s ‘small and refined’ approach, with a limited number of projects to be established in a well-organized manner, anchored by interdisciplinary platforms, innovation teams, and research projects.
Shandong University stands as an early adopter, establishing its interdisciplinary center in March 2024. The center comprises 40 cross-disciplinary supervisory teams focusing on 23 major interdisciplinary problem areas. ‘The purpose is to break down barriers between schools and design entirely new interdisciplinary training programs,’ stated Professor Han Bo, executive vice-dean of the university’s graduate school. From its inaugural cohort of 125 doctoral candidates, 10 students voluntarily entered the dual-degree pilot.
Professor Han acknowledged the significant academic pressure, noting students must complete two theses, and confirmed the program is tailored for exceptional talent, unlikely to become a mass trend. He powerfully argued for its necessity: ‘Many scientific problems require interdisciplinary solutions… The current disciplinary divisions are man-made, but real-world problems know no boundaries.’
The program’s impact is evidenced by its participants. Fan Xuhan, a geotechnical engineering PhD candidate simultaneously pursuing a master’s in materials science, applies his dual knowledge to developing anti-corrosion coatings for extreme environments in deep-sea mining and offshore energy projects. ‘I feel energetic and wanted to challenge myself to learn richer knowledge,’ he said.
Similarly, Chang Mengyuan, a clinical medicine doctoral candidate working toward a master’s in artificial intelligence, sees the fusion as inevitable. ‘Medical-engineering integration is the trend,’ she stated. Her AI work brings her lymphoma research closer to clinical practice, aiming to build a large model system for diagnosis, subtype classification, and treatment decision support. While intense, she finds the two programs ‘complementary and synergistic,’ and believes such training will significantly boost employability across medical institutions, research academies, and health-tech companies.
As China’s doctoral student population grows—reaching 676,300 enrolled and 97,200 graduates in 2024—the structural need for such interdisciplinary talent becomes increasingly acute. Experts like Chen Zhiwen, editor-in-chief of EOL, hail the pilot as a significant institutional push that transforms encouragement into actionable university responsibility, helping align resources and drive systemic reform. Success, experts concur, hinges on selecting the right students—those genuinely driven by interest or research needs—coupled with stringent selection, rigorous quality monitoring, and clear exit mechanisms to ensure the program’s lofty goals are achieved.