Graduate Programs
Overview
The College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering (CCME) at Peking University upholds a graduate education philosophy emphasizing “solid foundations, cutting-edge research, integrated research work with coursework”. The college aims to promote students' scientific spirit, innovation, critical thinking, and practical skills. The college strives to nurture graduate students with whole personality, a strong social responsibility and a broad international perspective, and encourages diverse development paths.
• Emphasis on both coursework and research
• Cultivating research competencies
• Fostering scientific taste
Admissions
The college currently admits exclusively PhD students. Since 2009, it has pioneered an admission system across the university, in which graduate students are first admitted into a primary discipline (chemistry), and then join their mutually selected supervisors through lab rotations after enrollment. Over 90% of the graduate students at CCME are PhD students directly recommended from their undergraduate programs. A complementary percent of the graduate students enters the program as master’s degree holders and are admitted through the “application-assessment” process. International students can be admitted to Chinese-taught programs with bachelor as the entry degree, or English-taught programs with master as the entry degree.
There are seven sub-disciplines at CCME:
Inorganic Chemistry
Analytical Chemistry
Organic Chemistry
Physical Chemistry
Polymer Chemistry and Physics
Chemistry (Chemical Biology)
Chemistry (Applied Chemistry)
Curriculum
The curriculum and training plans for graduate students follow a structure of:
university-level compulsory courses – college-level compulsory courses – college-level elective courses – major compulsory courses – major elective courses.
Compulsory courses include academic ethics, scientific writing, laboratory safety, and "Xingda Report" frontier academic lectures. The program also offers advanced topic courses and seminars, and also emphasizing on cultivating students’ teaching competencies.
Graduate students are encouraged to take courses across sub-disciplines and departments. Those with additional capacity are encouraged to choose high-level courses and interdisciplinary courses relevant to their research direction to enhance their scientific taste.
Features of the Program
The college continually explores training systems that align with the development of chemistry discipline. The program gradually removes the sub-discipline boundaries and customize training plans. Doctoral students can design customized training plans in consultation with their advisors based on their interests and future research plans, enabling the flexibility of the plans.
The college maintains high academic standards for awarding doctoral degrees. CCME strengthens the management of the doctoral training process, rigorously overseeing the general examinations, research proposals, annual progress inspection, mid-term evaluation, pre-defenses, dissertation, and final defenses.
College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering PhD Program Milestones
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First year
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Second year
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Third year
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Fourth year
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Fifth year
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Fall
(Jan-Sep)
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coursework,
lab rotations,
determining supervisors
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doctoral training plan making,
research work, teaching practice
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research work
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research work
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research work
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Spring
(Mar-Jun)
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coursework,
group meeting,
research work debuting
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research work, teaching practice, PhD candidate general examination, research proposal
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research work,
annual meeting on research progress
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research work,
mid-term evaluation / dissertation pre-defense
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research work,
dissertation defense
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The college has been continually improving the evaluation mechanisms and exploring long-term evaluation methods to promote academic innovation.
Cultivate Scientific Culture
The college fosters a rich academic atmosphere through brand seminar series, such as the "Xingda Lectureship" and "Xingda Student Invited Report," inviting internationally renowned scholars from chemistry and related disciplines for lectures, thus broadening graduate students' academic horizons. The "Xingda Report" has held over 660 sessions and is a compulsory course for doctoral students.
CCME also supports graduate-led academic forums and innovative activities, such as the "Physical Chemistry Graduate Frontier Forum," "Chemical Biology Graduate Frontier Forum," and "Chemistry Star and Chemistry Frontier Development Graduate Forum." The college enriches graduate academic communications with various resources like the "Inorganic Chemistry Forum," "Organic OPSS Report," and "Soft Matter Science Series Report."
Additionally, the School actively mobilizes resources to promote students' participation in international academic exchanges and collaborations, encouraging graduate students to engage in domestic and international exchange programs, short-term academic visits, overseas research during summer and winter breaks, and collaborative research. It also supports their involvement in open innovation experiments, entrepreneurship training programs, competitions, and other extracurricular learning and practice activities.