From July 22nd to 24th, the 2021 Annual Meeting of The Association of Chinese Graduate Schools(ACGS）— and The 2021 Working Meeting of Local Provincial Postgraduate Education Management Committees were held in Tianjin. Mr. Hong Dayong, Director General and Mr. Tang Jiwei, Second Inspector of the Department of Degree Management and Graduate Education of the Ministry of Education, Mr. Huang Baoyin, Director General and Mr. Ren Zenglin, Deputy Director General of the Center for Academic Degrees and Graduate Education Development of the Ministry of Education, Mr. Gong Qihuang, Secretary General of the Joint Conference and Executive Vice President and Dean of Graduate School of Peking University, Mr. Bai Haili, Deputy Director General of Tianjin Municipal Education Commission, Mr. Lei Ming, Deputy Secretary of Party Committee of Tianjin University and other representatives of the organizers attended the conference. The conference was attended by more than 300 participants, including the heads of provincial education administrative departments, the heads of postgraduate education in the national "double first-class" universities and the representatives of industry experts, to discuss the deepening of postgraduate education reform and development. The opening ceremony of the conference was hosted by Wang Shuxin, Vice President of Tianjin University. Bai Haili, Lei Ming and Gong Qihuang delivered speeches on behalf of the Tianjin Municipal Education Commission, Tianjin University and the Joint Conference of Deans respectively.

Address by Bai Haili, Deputy Director of Tianjin Municipal Education Commission

Lei Ming, Deputy Secretary of Party Committee of Tianjin University, delivered a speech

Address by Gong Qihuang, Secretary General of the ACGS, Executive Vice President and Dean of Graduate School of Peking University

The theme of this conference is "New Outlook - New Action, Focusing on High Quality and Excellent Development of Graduate Education", focusing on "Initiatives and Progress of Implementing the Spirit of National Conference on Graduate Education" and conducting in-depth exchanges and discussions. The conference report session was chaired by Bai Haili. The conference was held at the important time of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, the first anniversary of the National Conference on Postgraduate Education and the 40th anniversary of the implementation of the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Academic Degrees. At the conference, Liaoning Provincial Department of Education, Tianjin Municipal Education Commission, Peking University, Tianjin University and Shanghai University made exchange speeches to report the reform initiatives and work progress in implementing the spirit of the National Conference on Graduate Education in the past year.

In the conference report session, Huang Baoyin, Director of the Center for Academic Degrees and Postgraduate Education Development of the Ministry of Education, delivered a report entitled "Implementing the spirit of the National Conference on Postgraduate Education and serving the high-quality development of postgraduate education in the new era with a high-quality dissertation quality monitoring service platform".

Huang Baoyin, Director of the China Academic Degrees and Graduate Education Development Center, delivered a report on the conference

He interpreted the new spirit and requirements of the reform and development of postgraduate education in the new era from the perspective of the quality management of dissertations, introduced the quality monitoring platform of dissertations, the service mode and relevant monitoring results, and highly praised the special initiative of Tianjin University to carry out international review of doctoral dissertations. He hoped that the cultivation units would have a correct understanding of the dissertation quality monitoring service, clarify the responsible body for quality assurance, enhance the internal driving force, strengthen self-restraint, and jointly build a high-level quality assurance and supervision system with effective interface among government departments, cultivation units and professional institutions.

Mr. Hong Dayong, Director General of the Department of Degree Management and Graduate Education of the Ministry of Education, delivered a report on "Promoting the High Quality Development of Graduate Education with the Cultivation of Urgently Needed High-level Talents as the Focus".

Hong Dayong, Director General of the Department of Degree Management & Postgraduate Education (Office of the State Council Academic Degrees Committee), delivered a report on the conference.

He reviewed the important instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping on the work of postgraduate education and the key work of implementing the important instructions of the General Secretary in the past year. Since the first national conference on graduate education in China, the Ministry of Education has researched and formulated a series of normative documents, condensed ten special actions, and strengthened supervision to ensure the implementation of the work, showing the development trend of "development to high quality, comprehensive and systematic reform, more confident opening, more independent innovation and more systematic attention".

For the next phase of work, he emphasized the need to fully implement the relevant reform documents as the support, to deepen the "double first-class" construction as a leader, to promote the cultivation of urgent high-level talents, to drive the pattern of changes in graduate education, and introduced the main ideas and key initiatives of the action plan for the cultivation of urgent high-level talents.

He emphasized the need to further carry forward the great spirit of the founding of the Party, enhance political awareness, awareness of responsibility, awareness of action and quality awareness, draw spiritual motivation from the century-old Party history, enhance educational self-confidence from the practice of postgraduate education development, consciously take up the responsibility, live up to the mission, promote the high-quality development of postgraduate education in the new era, and create a new situation of postgraduate education in China.

In the afternoon of July 23, three special meetings of the conference, namely, the 2021 Annual Meeting of The Association of Chinese Graduate Schools(ACGS）, the 2021 Working Meeting of Local Provincial Postgraduate Education Management Committees and the Working Meeting of Degree Award Information Reporting, were held.

The Annual Meeting of the Association of Chinese Graduate Schools(ACGS）2021 was co-chaired by Zheng Gang, Executive Vice President of Graduate School of Tianjin University and Jiang Guohua, Executive Vice President of Graduate School of Peking University, the rotating chairmen. At the meeting, Gong Weihua, Director of the Planning Division of the Department of Development Planning of the Ministry of Education, gave an invited report on the preliminary consideration of the reform of national graduate enrollment plan management during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. He interpreted the "Thirteenth Five-Year" period of China's higher education, especially the basic situation of graduate enrollment management and the main problems currently facing, and from the development of the scale, enrollment structure, key work and other aspects of the "Fourteenth Five-Year" period of enrollment management He also introduced the preliminary idea of enrollment plan management during the 14th Five-Year Plan period in terms of development scale, enrollment structure and key work.

Zou Jiefu, Chief Engineer of China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group, and Zeng Weisheng, Director of Research and Talent Development Department of Cloud and Computing University of Huawei Technologies, two representatives of industry, were invited to make reports. Wang Yanfen, Executive Vice President of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Liang Bin, Vice President of Sichuan University, Liu Zhi, Vice President of Graduate School of Northeast Normal University, Jiang Guohua, Executive Vice President of Graduate School of Peking University, Wang Junzheng, Executive Vice President of Graduate School of Beijing University of Technology, Bao Gang, President of Graduate School of Zhejiang University, Huang Hongwei, former President of Graduate School of Tongji University, Zheng Gang, Executive Vice President of Graduate School of Tianjin University, and Zhou Jilin, Executive Vice President of Graduate School of Nanjing University Zhou Jilin, Executive Vice President of Graduate School of Nanjing University, made keynote reports to introduce the practice and deep thinking of universities in promoting the high-quality development of graduate education, focusing on the fundamental task of establishing moral education, construction of supervisory team, interdisciplinary education, integration of science and education cultivation, integration of industry and education cultivation, exploration of diversion mechanism, cultivation of engineering professional degree graduate students and other important issues of graduate education reform.

The Working Conference of Local Provincial Postgraduate Education Management Committees in 2021 was hosted by Tang Jiwei, the second-level inspector of the China Academic Degrees and Graduate Education Development Center. Lu Xiaobin, Director of Quality and Discipline Construction Department, Luan Zongtao, Director of Degree Management Department, and Hao Tongliang, Director of Postgraduate Training Department of the China Academic Degrees and Graduate Education Development Center, made reports on the work of degree conferment information, reform of discipline and major system and key work of postgraduate training respectively, and the meeting also exchanged and discussed on the topics of electronic certificate of degree and off-site postgraduate training.

The special meeting on the work of reporting degree conferment information (the second semester of academic year 2020/2021) was presided over by Ren Zenglin, Deputy Director of the Development Center for Academic Degrees and Postgraduate Education of the Ministry of Education. The meeting summarized the work of degree conferment information submission in the first semester of 2020/2021 academic year, deployed the work of degree conferment information submission in the second semester, informed the situation of "special cleaning of degree conferment information", and conducted training and discussion on the degree conferment information submission.

On July 24th, the annual meeting of The Association of Chinese Graduate Schools(ACGS）2021 held a special seminar in groups. The delegates focused on the topics of "Building up moral character and the comprehensive development of postgraduates' moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic and social development", "Construction of high-level supervisory team and harmonious relationship between supervisors and students", "Professional degree postgraduates' cultivation serving national needs and the mechanism of integration between industry and education". "The participants had a wide and in-depth exchange and discussion on five themes, namely, "the mechanism of postgraduate diversion and high-quality postgraduate cultivation system", "interdisciplinary and innovative talent cultivation", adhering to the problem-oriented approach and seeking to reach a consensus.

In terms of moral education, the participants believe that there are many types of postgraduate training, many demands and complex growth rules, so it is necessary to systematically build a postgraduate ideological and political education system and implement "three comprehensive education and five education". As for the construction of tutor team, it is suggested to use the platform of the joint conference to explore, share and select high-quality tutor training resources. With regard to the cultivation of professional degree graduate students, it is worthwhile to further explore the modes and ways of differentiated and coordinated development of professional degree and academic degree, and the integration of industry and education, and multi-dimensional policy measures and social recognition are needed to stimulate the vitality of enterprises, instructors and students. In the exploration of triage mechanism, it is suggested to strengthen the process management, incorporate the enrollment selection process into the triage process, and implement application guidance and early triage. In terms of cross-cultivation of disciplines, the delegates believe that evaluation issues such as discipline evaluation and discipline attribution of dissertations are the key in cross-cultivation, "Should cross-disciplines be top-level design, or free combination? Should they be administratively led, or should they be developed by professors? Should the school do the structure, or create the atmosphere? Is it to protect the discipline, or to help students and revitalize the industry?" The questions such as "Should we protect the discipline or help the students and the industry?" are worth thinking deeply.

In the concluding remarks of the conference, Mr. Zheng Gang, the rotating chairman of The Association of Chinese Graduate Schools(ACGS）in 2021, summarized the exchange and fruitful results of the conference, and introduced the main work carried out by The Association of Chinese Graduate Schools(ACGS）in the first half of 2021, including organizing and holding two working meetings of the presidents, completing the "major topics" in 2019, and holding the "mid-term assessment of doctoral programs". The main work of The Association of Chinese Graduate Schools(ACGS）in the first half of 2021 was introduced, including organizing two working meetings of the President, completing the mid-term evaluation of "major projects" in 2019, holding a special forum on "cultivation of doctoral degree students", launching the new website, and completing the admission of new members. At the same time, he deployed the next key work, including the implementation and management of "major topics" and "special forum", as well as the construction of the Joint Committee after the admission of new members, and the implementation of the spirit of the National Postgraduate Education Conference. He hoped that all members would be brave enough to undertake the mission, deepen the reform and innovation, and actively contribute to the high-quality development of postgraduate education.

The conference was co-sponsored by The Association of Chinese Graduate Schools(ACGS）and the Local provincial postgraduate education management committees of the Chinese Society for Academic Degrees and Graduate Education, jointly organized by the Graduate School of Tianjin University and Tianjin Academic Degrees Office, and co-organized by the Graduate School of Beijing University of Technology, the Graduate School of Tongji University, the Graduate School of Sichuan University and the Graduate School of Peking University.

This conference is an important initiative to implement the spirit and deployment of the central government and the Ministry of Education on the reform of postgraduate education, and it is a postgraduate education event that brings together all local postgraduate education committees and universities under the construction of "double first-class", and it is also the first big gathering after the expansion of the membership of The Association of Chinese Graduate Schools(ACGS）from the original 57 universities to nearly 140 universities. It is also the first meeting after the expansion of the membership of China Graduate School Dean Association from 57 universities to nearly 140 universities. The conference summarized the experience and achievements of the reform of graduate education in the past year, and further clarified the goals and paths of innovative development in the next stage, which is of great significance to continue to thoroughly implement the spirit of the National Conference on Graduate Education, unite all members of the expanded Joint Conference, and focus on the high-quality and excellent development of graduate education, and will promote the role of graduate education in cultivating innovative talents, improving innovation ability, serving economic and social development, and promoting the development of national governance system. It will promote graduate education to play a more important role in cultivating innovative talents, improving innovation ability, serving economic and social development, and promoting the modernization of national governance system and governance capacity. (Contributed by Graduate School of Tianjin University, July 25th, 2021)

Secretariat of ACGS

July 25th, 2021