Tsinghua University was approved to set up the undergraduate degree program in pharmacy in 2009, the master’s degree program in pharmacy as first-level subject in 2011, and the doctoral degree program in pharmacy as first-level subject in July 2022, forming an integrated education and teaching system of undergraduate degree, master’s degree and doctoral degree programs in pharmacy. In terms of subject setting, the school makes both inheritance and innovation, with such traditional directions as pharmaceutics, pharmaceutical chemistry, pharmacology and pharmaceutical analysis, and also multiple emerging directions and interdisciplinary research directions including microbiology and biotechnology pharmacology, social and administrative pharmacy, etc., forming a distinctive subject layout. At present, the school has 33 doctoral supervisors, nearly 80% of whom have been selected into various national talent programs, such as “Innovative Talent Promotion Program”, “Changjiang Distinguished Professor of the Ministry of Education”, “National Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars”, and “Changjiang Scholars Award Program for Young Scholars”, forming a faculty of extensive knowledgeable, meticulous scholarship and reasonable age structure. As a dual first-class key discipline of Tsinghua University, the school has established and opened a number of public service platforms, such as the computer-aided drug design sub-platform, drug preparation sub-platform, etc., and state key laboratories. The strong faculty and powerful technical platforms have laid a solid foundation and provided great support for the postgraduate education in pharmacy. The school currently has 274 doctoral students and 2 master students. The number of postgraduate students keeps increasing, and the cultivation of high-level talents has begun to take shape. Since its inception in 2015, the school has trained nearly 200 graduate students, providing a large number of leading talents in the field of global medicine and health, and injecting strong impetus to the sustainable development of human health cause.
The School of Pharmaceutical Sciences always takes into account the national strategic needs and the economic and social development needs, and follows the overall requirements of “pursuing excellence, promoting transformation, keeping in line with international standards, and reaching the world-class level”, committed to cultivating future pharmaceutical scientists with extensive and exquisite theoretical knowledge and scientific research skills, as well as critical thinking and innovation capability necessary for basic scientific research breakthrough and achievement transformation, and high-end talents in innovative drug R&D, management and research achievement transformation, cultivating and conveying leaders and pioneers who can promote sustainable development and reform in the field of medicine around the world, so as to make outstanding contributions to the improvement of human health.
To achieve this goal, the postgraduate education of the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences mainly takes the following measures to ensure the quality of postgraduate talent training:
1. Diverse enrollment modes to ensure the quality of students
The postgraduate enrollment of the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences implements the “application-review” system, and adopts the mode of combining the separate enrollment by the school and the joint enrollment by the “four parties” (the life science related direction of the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the School of Life Science, the Department of Basic Medicine of the School of Medicine, and the Center for Life Sciences of Tsinghua University) to ensure the absorption of high-quality students who meet the needs of pharmaceutical talent training. Meanwhile, the school holds the “Summer Camp for Outstanding Students” at the end of each June or the beginning of each July for consecutive years to select outstanding students with great potential in advance.
2. Set up a doctoral steering committee to take advantage of collective guidance
A supervisor is the first person responsible for postgraduate training. On that basis, a doctoral steering committee needs to be set up for all doctoral students in the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, responsible for providing targeted and consistent academic guidance for doctoral research work, mainly reflected in respect of thesis topic selection, project progress, achievement summary, thesis writing and publication, etc. The steering committee regularly organizes the annual review meeting every academic year for listening to the project progress report, giving full play to the role of collective guidance, encouraging students to carry out original and exploratory scientific research and helping doctoral students complete the project work with high quality.
3. Lay stress on professional curriculum construction and build a curriculum system of pharmaceutical characteristics
Based on the training objectives of pharmaceutical talents and the subject development characteristics, the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences further strengths the basic theoretical courses and professional basic courses, continuously offers frontier and featured courses, constructs a multidisciplinary curriculum system covering pharmacy, chemistry, biology, medicine and other disciplines, and keeps building and optimizing the professional curriculum structure. In terms of faculty, according to the actual course needs, we invite relevant government agencies, brother schools/departments, domestic and foreign pharmaceutical companies and other industry professionals to form a teaching expert group, gathering top experts from various fields to ensure the teaching quality of postgraduate courses.
4. Perform strict assessment and improve the diversion mechanism
The School of Pharmaceutical Sciences makes clear the assessment and diversion requirements in doctoral qualification examination, proposal, mid-term assessment, pre-defense and other aspects. For example, the doctoral qualification examination sets a failure rate of no less than 20% each time. The students who fail to pass the examination twice or fail to complete the examination within the specified time will not be eligible for continuing to study for the doctoral degree and will be subject to diversion. Postgraduate dissertation is an important basis for degree application. The school implements a two-way fully anonymous submission mode for doctoral dissertation review, establishes a clear feedback and consideration mechanism for the review results and revision opinions, and firmly has zero tolerance for academic irregularities to ensure the quality of doctoral dissertation.
5. Strengthen academic exchanges and promote all-round development
The School of Pharmaceutical Sciences sets clear requirements on the academic reporting capability of postgraduate students, and organizes various academic exchange activities with distinct themes, novel contents and diverse forms, such as “Doctoral Academic Salon of the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences”. For the purpose of exchange, study and training of speaking ability, the school establishes free and open communication platforms for students, and creates a good academic atmosphere between teachers and students, so as to enhance academic capacity and promote academic innovation.
6. Set up the graduate work committee to strengthen the whole-process management
The graduate work committee is mainly responsible for developing and improving the postgraduate training plan, clarifying the requirements of postgraduate training, coordinating the organization and implementation of various work related to postgraduate training, and dealing with the contradictions between supervisors and students and emergencies / urgent affairs of postgraduate students, so as to ensure the efficient and orderly operation of postgraduate education and teaching.
