The Academic Degree Committee of the State Council has recently accredited and announced Tsinghua University’s 9 first-level subjects which can grant doctoral degrees in humanities and social science. These 9 subjects were supplemented and submitted by Tsinghua in its 10th subjects review.SEM’s Theoretical Economics and Applied Economics. were among the 9 subjects.

Before this accreditation, Tsinghua SEM was entitled to grant doctoral degrees in two first-level subjects: Management Science & Engineering and Business Administration. The latter includes three second-level subjects: Technology Economics & Management, Corporate Management and Accounting. In subjects related to Economics, SEM was accredited to grant doctoral degrees in two second-level subjects: Political Economics and Statistical Economics.After this new accreditation, Tsinghua SEM is entitled to have doctoral candidates in second-level subjects of Political Economics, Western Economics, Statistical Economics and Finance. The first two belong to the field of theoretical economics and the latter two applied economics.

Talking about the significance of this new accreditation, Zinai Li, Chairman of the Sub-committee of Economics and Management Degrees under the Tsinghua Degree Review Committee and Professor of the Department of Economics, remarked, “This new accreditation does not only mean a larger scope of doctoral degree-granting. It can also help SEM improve the graduate program curricula in first-level subjects, enlarge the option range of dissertation topics,widen graduate students’ knowledge of basic theories and their specialty areas and hence enhance the quality of graduate students, and especially doctoral candidates’ creativity.